My Vodafone signal has recently gone downhill in my house faster than an Alpine skier. I have regular drop calls and signal is very poor. When I phoned a couple of months ago they said it was because of work on my nearest mast. I phoned them yesterday and now they say that the work is complete and basically the signal now is as good as it will get. They have offered me a free sure signal box. Does anyone have any experience of using one and is it any good.

Provided that you have halfways usable broadband the the Sure Signal box will work very well. We have had one for the last years as while the outdoors signal isn't bad the thick stone walls of our old farmhouse makes indoor reception almost non-existent. Bought a Sure Signal at the old price of £50. They are now £100 so the offer of a free one is good. There is now good reception on Vodafone in every part of the house not just right up against the windows.

Vodafone sell their signal box over the counter & I'm always amazed that the other operators make it so difficult to obtain their equivalent as it could easily be the difference between keeping a customer & losing them. We also have a Three signal box that wrks equally well but had a lot of hassle & many phone calls before they would agree to send us one.

They are £69 actually.

I have the older variant of the sure signal and the newer powerline looking one. I have one at my mothers home and one where I live most of the time. Much like you I did suffer with signal issues, however thats improved in recent years since Vodafone pulled their fingers out. They make a difference I have to say, eventually they may become redundant once WiFi calling is rolled out to more handsets.

Take them up on their offer, they work really well and require next to no faffing about. You will need to register it via the my account section at vodafone.co.uk

Initially it will only be set up using your mobile numberm however if you have friends and family to visit you can add them as well, assuming they are on Vodafone as well. Same applies also for other people who live with you.

The one thing I have found is the calls are higher in quality compared to the network side. HD voice even works.

My advice is to make sure you have a broadband connection with a decent upload speed, maybe 1Mb+. It just ensures the call quality and stability.

Go for it, you have nothing to lose in all honesty, maybe a bit of lecky, even then it would be money well spent IMHO.

It's good that they have reduced the price although it's still much more than we paid five years ago. It definitely was £100 because I checked up a year or two ago when ours seemed to be on the blink & I thought that we would need to buy a new one. Here's a review from 2013 that confirms the £100 price tag.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/73...al-review-2013

The new design with it all integrated into a wall plug is very neat. Much better than the separate box & power supply that we have.

Indeed they were £100 but have been dropped to £69 now.

The biggest problem you might come across is setting it up with your local network. They can be really touchy about communicating through your firewall. But if you're lucky and don't have this issue they're brilliant. Occasionally, Vodafone manage to break the connection, but on the whole they work well.

I have the original sure signal and paid £50 for it.

I don't use it as I haven't been a VF customer for years, but when I did use it I remember it being perfectly reliable. One thing I liked (that no other network has really done) is that you can administer it yourself - adding or removing numbers, or changing the registered address can be done online.

I also have the 3 version. They have a web form for adding numbers, that doesn't work properly, but they do have an (India based) dedicated team for handling this stuff and they're pretty quick to do it.

Thank you for advice will collect instore today

I'm sure I've read elsewhere that the operation of the SureSignal unit breaks various networking conventions and rules.

I believe it uses IPsec to communicate with the Vodafone network. Some consumer routers have problems with this - just as they'd do with any IPsec connection (e.g. a VPN client)

I might be wrong on this any modern router should be setup for uPnP, with that feature it should work on most routers and connection. The only ISP I had issues with was Sky, for some reason the sure signal wouldn't connect, even going as far as the DMZ. Any other router from the likes of Virgin, BT and so on worked a treat.

Went into my local store and they started being very unhelpful as to why I was getting one for free. Went home and ordered one for free over the phone no problem

Not true ; any corporate network engineer should understand the traffic no problem. However its not typical home traffic.

I have one and works well. One thing it does do is report my location as up in Scotland! This is if you have location set to high accuracy using both network and gps. I'm in Yorkshire btw.

Other thing is they can get warm and one or two have caught fire - or so I've read on the voda forum. I turn ours off when away but make sure it doesn't get covered.

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Got the sure signal set up and it appears to have all the right lights on the box. I thought it would show full 3g signal but doesn't even when in same room. My wife tried to make a call this morning and call dropped same problem as before.

Is your wife's number registered in the sure signal, or is that the line that the sure signal is registered against (in which case it shouldn't need adding).

It can take 24 hrs to register, but generally quicker.

It is registered but signal seems to H on both phones now.

Is there any danger of a Suresignal not working if I buy it secondhand? E.G. do they need to be deregistered?

Yes make sure deregistered or refundable.

Thank you