Britain’s Telecom Shame
Why I Finally Ditched Vodafone and BT After 20 Years of Kafkaesque Hell
I moved to the UK in 2003 and got my first British mobile number with Vodafone. What followed was a 20-year saga of dropped calls, signal blackouts, broadband lies — and ultimately, a complete loss of faith in two of the most incompetent telecom companies in the Western world: Vodafone and BT.
Let me tell you exactly how bad it got.
📵 “Can You Hear Me Now?” — No, Never With Vodafone
I lived in the Southern part of Greater London, within the M25, for years. Vodafone promised “excellent coverage.” Reality? I couldn’t even get a full phone call through on the way to the City without being cut off. Yes. I once tried doing a WhatsApp call on an Uber from my house in South London to the office — call dropped again and again and again before I even crossed the Thames.
Even when going for a walk close to my home - no signal.
And this wasn’t rural Wales. This was London.
It didn’t get better elsewhere. In Edinburgh, where I often travel, entire stretches like Seafield Road between Portobello and Leith are signal dead zones. Open Google Maps? Forget it. Make a business call? Not happening.
And here’s the insult: their coverage maps are fantasy. According to them, I should have had 4G and even 5G in all these places. But even in 2025, it’s like using a phone in 1996.
“Vodafone’s coverage maps are wildly misleading... I live in a town that supposedly has full 5G, but I barely get a usable 4G signal.”
— Reddit user, July 2025
📞 Cancelling Vodafone: A Kafkaesque Nightmare
Trying to cancel a Vodafone contract is like trying to escape a cult.
They refuse to let you cancel in writing. You must call. And even then, they’ll claim “the cancellation wasn’t processed.” I told them clearly I wanted out. They said “no problem.” Next month? Still billed. The month after? Still billed. I returned the phone I had just bought — they lost it. I should have sued. I really should have. But life gets in the way. And Vodafone knows that. They prey on it.
“It’s a trap. You try to cancel and you get looped around departments or mysteriously disconnected. Months later you’re still being charged.”
— Trustpilot reviewer, 2024
🚄 Still No Signal on the Stansted Express — In 2025
One final straw: the Stansted Express, coming out of the airport. No signal in 2003. Still no signal in 2025. That’s over two decades with no coverage on a major transport link into London. It’s beyond embarrassing — it’s a national infrastructure joke.
“You’d think in 2025 there’d be mobile service on a train from a London airport. But Vodafone still hasn’t figured it out.”
— TechRadar commenter, 2025
🧵 The BT Broadband Lie
If Vodafone is bad for mobile, BT is a disgrace for broadband. For five years, I’ve tried to upload high-quality YouTube videos — and if you live just outside a major city (but not in a “rural” area), forget it. Advertised “superfast fibre”? Nowhere to be seen. Especially upload speeds: often slower than my mobile tether.
Even now, there’s no fibre, no upgrades, no improvements. It’s as if BT still thinks we’re in the dial-up era.
“BT advertises high-speed broadband, but all I get is 2Mbps down and 0.5Mbps up. It’s 2025. What is this?”
— BT Community Forum, March 2025
💡 My Escape: EE & Starlink
Ironically, EE — now part of BT — has excellent mobile coverage. I finally switched in 2024, and I regret not doing it sooner. It’s cheaper, faster, and actually works. No dropped calls, no fake coverage maps.
For broadband, I’ve now gone full Starlink. Yes, Elon saved me. Stable uploads, real speeds, anywhere. BT couldn't even match speeds from a satellite dish in 2025.
“Starlink is more stable than BT and three times faster in my rural town.”
— Twitter user @james_uktech, May 2025
🌍 Global Reality Check: The Digital South Is Winning
To add insult to injury, I work daily with talented professionals in Eastern Europe, Asia — places like Pakistan and the Philippines — and in South America, including Argentina.
These are the countries many in the West still arrogantly dismiss as “developing.” But let me tell you: their internet infrastructure puts Britain to shame.
My video editors in Davao, my animators in Lahore, my sound engineers in Buenos Aires — they all have access to cheap, fast, and reliable fibre broadband. Zoom calls? Instant. 4K uploads? No problem. Large project files? Done in seconds.
Meanwhile in Britain, I’m sat in my kitchen praying for 2 Mbps upload speed just to send a rough cut.
“I’m in Karachi, Pakistan. 200 Mbps fibre costs me £12/month. Never drops. Latency is solid. I work with UK and US clients daily.”
— Upwork freelancer, 2025
“Philippine telcos get a lot of hate, but my 500 Mbps plan works great. Fibre is everywhere here now.”
— Reddit user from Cebu, June 2025
“In Buenos Aires, I pay about £9/month for 100 Mbps and haven’t had an outage in a year.”
— Trustpilot review of Fibertel AR
These countries have made it a national priority to connect their people to the global digital economy. And it works. It lifts people out of poverty, gives them a stake in the global market, and it makes them formidable competitors.
Why isn’t Britain doing the same? Where is the urgency? Where is the vision?
Let’s not even talk about Germany, where bureaucracy kills everything and many small towns still rely on DSL from 2007. Europe is supposed to be the future? It’s falling behind fast.
🤖 How Are We Still Here?
It’s 2025. We’re living in the age of ChatGPT, quantum AI, brain chips, autonomous taxis. And yet in the UK, we still can’t get a reliable phone call on the way to work. Still can’t cancel a phone contract without legal threats. Still buffering on YouTube uploads.
This isn’t a tech problem. It’s a monopoly problem. A regulation problem. A we-don’t-care-about-customers problem.
🚫 Final Verdict
Vodafone UK:
👎 Awful signal. Misleading maps. Predatory contracts. 20 years of failure.
Avoid like the plague.
BT Broadband:
👎 Sluggish speeds. Empty fibre promises. Kafkaesque support.
Only use if pigeons are not available to carry your data.
✊ Speak Out, Switch Early
If you’re reading this and suffering through similar hell — don’t be complacent like me and wait 20 years like I did. Switch to EE. Try Starlink (or any other provider that works where you are). Use a reputable MVNO. And for God’s sake, if you must use Vodafone or BT, don’t sign a long-term contract.
Have your own horror story? Send me a link and I will include it here. Let’s shine a light on just how bad UK telecom still is — and demand something better.
