Coverage et al....

[GW4DVB]

Last year I enquired about the EE 5GEE offering. The service and speed that getting from BT Broadband (FTC) was awful.
So have spoken to their Technical Team I was told (and shown on their coverage map) that 5G was available in my area outside but indoors it would be intermittent. Cutting a long story short I took the plunge and ordered a HomeHub with 4 antenna ports and connected it to an expensive Mimi 4 x 4 antenna mounted on a mast on the side of my house. The service was great with speeds up to 700Mbs. The problem that I have had is that every now and again the service starts to degrade. On checking the coverage map now it says that 5G is NOT AVAILABLE in my area.. Having spoken to one of their network guys it appears that it in not un-common for EE to tweak the antenna of a base station to maximize coverage to the local population. What they fail to do is pay any thought to those who signed up on the promise of coverage in their area. This has happened twice now where my service has reverted to 4G from a solid 5G signal. In both case I have managed to resume the 5G signal by tweaking the antenna connections (Horizontal vs Vertical) on the back of the router. In my case it has just become a nuisance and just takes time to get things going again. But I wonder firstly the ethics of what is being done and also those who are unable to understand why their signals degrade so badly over time.. Oh - and I have tried complaining to both EE and OFCOM. Without access to the original coverage maps (which seem to have gone missing) you are in contract with them and have to suffer their coverage changes at their will.

[bristolian]

Optimisation of all network sites is an ongoing & BAU process, the intention is always to maximise the overall coverage but fringe cases can sometimes see the loss of particular technologies or bands.

It's not something that the complaints process, much less Ofcom, would be in a position to manage - the T&C's are not technology-specific. Do you know which frequency bands were you connecting to when you received 5G-NR coverage? And which are you obtaining when on 4G-LTE?

Out of interest,  what speeds do you obtain on 4G, and what functions are you doing for which 5G is essential/4G is insufficient?

[GW4DVB]

Hi

Yes, I now know all about network optimisation - The fact that a network can sell you a high-speed solution and then withdraw it without notice (and keeping you to the original contract is deplorable).

From my location I have a cell site within half a mile (nearly line of site) which is on Bands 1, 3 and 7

On 4G I get speeds no faster than 50Mbs - 750Mps on 5G

I use the high speeds to enable me to visually remotely operate Radio Equipment  which in turn uses a third-party AI App  to remove noise from Speech and Morse Code radio signals. 4G  just does not cut it !!!

Once out of contract I'll be switching to one of the Fibre Suppliers - Sadly Open Reach have had the Fibre in the ground going past my house for 5 years now but have not got enough infrastructure to roll it out... 

[bristolian]

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@GW4DVB wrote:

From my location I have a cell site within half a mile (nearly line of site) which is on Bands 1, 3 and 7

On 4G I get speeds no faster than 50Mbs

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Assuming dual-carrier B3 & B7, you could have ~90Mhz of LTE bandwidth there, which should be more than capable of the functionality you need.

There's more to this case than meets the eye, I suspect.

[GW4DVB]

I totally agree - anyway I'm on top of it now - Thanks for your input but I'm still none the wiser !