More on my Vodafone 403 errors – an explanation at least

The next chapter of the ongoing saga. I had the 403 errors again today when using my phone as a modem to test out firewall. As I was in the office I had time to call Vodafone support. As expect I had to speak to a succession of people:

• Person 1 – call centre advisor, passed me straight onto ‘support’
• Person 2 – support advisor but seem lost when I spoke about web protocols, I think it was more ‘making a phone ring’ support
• Person 3 – 2nd line support, success, as soon as I explained my problem they said ‘yes that happens’.

The problem is down, as I had suspected, to congestion in their WAN network (not the 3G network, though the density of cells is a factor). When you try to use HTTP Vodafone route a request to their authentication server to see if your account is allow to connect to the site. By default they block a list of adult/premium web sites (this is service you have switched on or off with your account). The problem is at busy times this validation service is overloaded and so their systems get no response as to whether the site is allowed, so assume the site you asked for is restricted and gives the 403 error. Once this happens you seem to have to make new 3G data connection (reset the phone, move cell or let the connection time out) to get it to try again.

I have now had the restricted service removed from my account, we will see if this help. I fear it will not as any connection still has to ask the authentication server if the site is restricted even if my account is set to restrict no sites.

So it seems that volume of smartphones is really hurting Vodafone's internal network. They seem to have the 3G/Edge capacity, shame they have not got enough server wan/capacity to back it up yet.

What I don’t understand is why this has taken me so long to get a sensible answer. Can’t they publish a statement on this problem on their support forums or web site?