topic Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable in Mobile Broadband

EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

JM007 — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 13:01:46 GMT

Hi,

I purchased the EE 5g Smart Hub as I live in a remote part of the UK (Cotswolds) and was advised by the sales person at EE that this would be my best option as other provider would run through the phone line and be very slow. My EE 5G Smart Hub is in use for my garden office for my business as I work mainly from home. It is simply not reliable. The tower shows all the correct icons and colour but the signal drops my webex/teams/zooms calls/mobile calls all the time. My clients, prospects and peers always struggle to hear me. After calling EE a few times, it is not really improving. I keep being told we have reset the box, try it again but it is ver business unfriendly to say the least and reliability is close to 000.

I have now been obliged to purchase a BT home broadband through phone line. It is slow speed for uploads / downloads but it is reliable compared to the EE 5G Smart Hub.

Is anyone else having a similar experience with the EE 5G Smart Hub? Any advice or guidance would be welcome as EE support 1) the waiting time is very long for a company of this caliber and 2) they are not able to provide a suitable outcome so far.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

Christopher_G — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 16:32:59 GMT

Hi @JM007

Welcome to the community.

How long have you had the 5G router for? Did you take it out in store or over the phone?

What is the estimated coverage like for you area?
Chris

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

JM007 — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 13:17:44 GMT

Bought over the phone 4 months ago under the advice of the EE Sales Telesales as I live in a rural area.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

Christopher_G — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:33:20 GMT

OK, thanks @JM007

What is the estimated coverage like for you area?

Chris

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

JM007 — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:46:33 GMT

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

Christopher_G — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:55:36 GMT

Thanks, @JM007

I can see why the download speeds may not be great. I recommend speaking with our Technical Support team so they can look into this and do their best to help.

Let us know how you get on.

Chris

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

JM007 — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 19:44:38 GMT

Thanks. You may not have read my original post, I guess.

Best

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

MitchyBEE — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 16:39:25 GMT

I've had the EE 5g Smart Hub for a year now and I'm switching once I'm out of my contract. It is the most unreliable internet I've used. They advertise that it's great for multiple devices that are streaming and gaming but that is a lie. The 5g smart hub comes with massively high packet loss, plenty of outages, and internet speed that changes every second. Technical support doesn't help at all. When you ask for them to fix anything they say "You're internet speed is actually greater than expected or should be", "try resetting the router", and "your coverage is great for your area". Which doesn't help at all because when you do a speed test any internet provider purposely boosts your internet for the test, and resetting the router doesn't work because the router is not the problem..... I hope someone reads this and it persuades them not to buy. It will save you a lot of frustration if you go elsewhere. Honestly feels like you're being gas lit as a customer at EE.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

danharper83 — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:25:40 GMT

Same issue, I was told by somebody from the business department to take it back and they would get me a better one. Went into the shop and they refuse to take it back and claim it is the best one.

I'm moving network provider, had enough of the crap.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

JM007 — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 16:26:45 GMT

Hi Dan,

It was a nightmare for me too as I had to call EE several times and explain, re-explain and re-re explain the fact that this broadband was not working and I was losing the connection. My daily business was impacted greatly as I worked from home.

In the end, they did refund me part of the subscription but a real loss as this network was always breaking/losing signal. I have moved to the UK main broadband provider and had a great connection ever since.

Best

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

danharper83 — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 17:39:16 GMT

Hi JM

There's also some issue with sims that they're not clear about. Apparently a voice sim can't be upgraded to a data sim, not sure if this is just something to do with accounts rather than the physical network.

I was told I couldn't upgrade a voice sim (Even though when I bought it two years ago I asked for a data only sim) to a data sim. The whole thing is opaque. The original "Voice sim" did work in a DLink router for a long time but then the router stopped finding the 5g or 4g network and I wasn't sure whether I should by a new router or not.

I'm using mine in the office instead of a landline, we're web developers so use traffic across a lot of different ports and require a decent upload speed this just drops to unusable speeds and is extremely unstable. I get better service tethering to my iPhone.

What's really annoying is that you can't get one to try it out so now I'm stuck with a piece of junk I'll never use and paying for the privilege.

What adds to the frustration is that people on the phone say different things to the people in store is, the store a refusing to give me a refund until I get a note or that it's not working even though somebody on 150 told me to go and get rid of it.

Why phone networks white label / build their own kit is totally beyond me, just offer something from a decent manufacturer as most people really don't care for having phone network branding in their office or house.

Rant over 😅

Cheers Dan

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

XRaySpeX — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 20:23:44 GMT

@danharper83 : Generally a phone SIM gives more data than a data SIM, £ for £.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

Jwbox911 — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 22:00:38 GMT

I spent months trying to tell EE that the router was rubbish. I got different answers every time I spent about 1 hour on the call. their answer in the end was all they could offer me was to leave - so I did.

that's what I would do if you have anything from bt/ee they are uaela

I had more tech knowledge than level 2 support !

so I do advise anyone - do not use EE for data over their router

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

Jwbox911 — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 13:36:24 GMT

I had the same experience. Tech support were no help at all, gave different answers and even internally agreed with themselves that the mast I was connecting to I was not !!

each call took a hour or so with no resolution. The Askey Hh20 hub is useless. I have watched it go from full signal (by numbers not bars) and I know which mast and cell I connect to. Which they dont ! It changes randomly, because when it jumps to crap 4g I can change it back to 5G - kind of defeats the purpose"auto" !!

anyway was offered leave with no penalty, when I find a ISP that tells the truth I will move.

Re: EE 5G smart Hub - Home tower broadband not reliable

useless5G — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 08:53:08 GMT

Sadly, I am having the same experience with my EE5G box. Weak signal - unable to provide standard internet services most of the time. I have tried to leave my contract complaining to the Communications Ombudsman , who concluded EE have done nothing wrong ! As soon as the opportunity arises I'm 'out' on all services from EE. A shocking service with zero custom service.