topic Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00 in Mobile Broadband

4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 22:22:00 GMT

Hey everyone, scratching my head with this one and have been hesitant to contact EE support just because explaining this over the phone may be a challenge. Wanted to get some advice here first hopefully.

I have a 5G unlimited data sim. I've been using it in my Huawei CPE Pro 2 for about 9 months now and it's been fantastic. I went from ~25mbps to ~180 overnight and it's been extremely reliable.

A couple of weeks ago (~15th March) we started noticing pretty bad speed issues. Nothing had changed on the internal network in the last week or so. LAN speeds were fine, so determined it was the EE connection.

Reported issue with coverage to EE on the 17th as it still hadn't resolved, and was told everything was fine in my area.

I've been doing regular speed tests with a docker image on my local network. Note, the x axis is misleading, originally I was testing every hour, and the container stopped at certain periods as I tried resolving the issue by playing around with DNS servers or VPN tunnelling. I switched to 15-min interval testing a couple of days ago (which starts about halfway through the graph). Total of ~116 tests.

TL;DR: The tests showing speeds of ~4mbps all start from 08:00, and stop at around 23:00.

Obviously, I expect fluctuation in data speeds, that's normal. But the consistent <5mbps speed for >12 hours a day is clearly more than a fluctuation.

I've ruled out any changes to our network internally in those times. I do work from home, but I'm more of a night owl so the speeds drop significantly before I'm even on the internet, and if anything my usage increases after 23:00 to make use of the speed boost whilst I have it. So I don't think it's a local bandwidth issue.

What is weird - which prompted me to to write this post, is after taking the sim card out of the router and putting it in my phone, I was getting decent speeds again. As soon as i tethered from my phone to the PC I could barely get 2 mbps download.

I don't think it's an issue with switching between 5G &4G masts, as with the phone test I described I restricted network connection to 4G only (which is what I typically connect to on my Huawei router).

Am I being throttled? I would have thought i'd have been notified by EE if I broke some sort of fair use policy and they were throttling me this much.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 23:08:03 GMT

Following due to very similar issue that seems to have started from a very similar date. See post here.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 23:12:53 GMT

Very interesting to read this as I've looked back at when my customers reported this. One customer specifically said the issue started on the 15th March! The other customer was less specific but very similar date.

Is this EE or Huawei, I wonder? The company are very secretive about their firmware and that's lots of bad press in previous years that wiped out their phone reputation....

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:45:27 GMT

I would be surprised if this was a Huawei caused issue - just because I have my CPE Pro 2 in bridge mode meaning there's no updates etc. It could be a Huawei specific issue though.

Having said that - it doesn't explain why I was getting good speeds on my Xiaomi 11T Pro, until I attempted to tether which caused it to nose dive to 1 mbps.

Given the very rigid periods of time this affects I feel this must be an EE issue. Although throttling tethered devices is a no-no (I think anyway), it wouldn't surprise me if they had some sort of network prioritisation during peak periods. Could it be possible there's been a bug with that? I know only EE can answer that.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:48:39 GMT

@AdamInt What part of the country do you work in/serve customers? I'm Norfolk based, so curious if this could be a local issue.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:06:34 GMT

I am in Cambs, so fairly close by. Would be interested in discussing this directly with you at some point.

One very specific pattern that I am seeing is when I am performing speed tests, only certain devices on the network are experiencing slow connectivity whereas others are reporting higher speeds. The same devices seem to suffer consistently during the bad times, and then speed up again. However, other devices appear to be consistently achieve higher speeds throughout the day.

Having already proven that this pattern is not the Wi-Fi or LAN, this is the part that intrigues me the most, as I have never seen this pattern in the last 8 years of specialising in this area. It's almost like the 4G connection (or the router) is limiting certain devices - whilst others are not being limited. As far as I know, the 4G connection itself is unaware of internal MAC or IP addressing, so it keeps pointing towards Huawei.

I intend to swap the 4G router with a Teltonika next week to see what happens.

Another thought, could this be anything to do with the EE and BT integration...?

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

emeralddude69 — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:54:18 GMT

Been struggling with this since the 19/03/2024

Basically since the 19th March, I've had my Download speeds reduced to 1-5Mbps between 8am till 11pm.

I've only had my 5G home broadband for a month and it's been fine up to this point.

I first raised the issue on the 20th and arranged to provide speed tests to the support agent on the 22nd.
On the 22nd that Friday, I followed up with support agents providing the past 3 days speed tests, all of which were consistently slower during the daytime. 1-5 Mbps down vs 70-80 Mbps Up.
By 11pm I will get the speeds I've been advertised and expect. 80-120Mbps up and down.
The 5G router has been placed by the window with a clear line of sight to the mast, (I live in a top floor flat and I can see the tower by eye) and the UI shows full bars.
Prior to upgrading to 5G in January, I had the 4G Broadband with no issues after applying the IPV4 "fix" with a 4G anntenna pointed at the mast on the roof of my building.
Following up with Support over the weekend, reported no issues from EE.

Basically I've come to the conclusion that the problem might be that I'm somehow getting throttled during the daytime by the tower because:

Tested with mobile on EE, same results with 4G and 5G, Throttled throughout the day from 8am-11pm
Tested with Mobile on another network - 3, same results with speeds at the same time.
I even tested using a SMARTY sim which runs on the 3 network on the old 4G hub, still connected to the rooftop antenna, pointed straight to the mast, getting full signal but capped speeds during the day but fast advertised speeds at night.

At this point, I'm at a loss what to do next because it's becoming near impossible for me and my partner to both WFH in our flat because we can't just work nights due to our work.

We live in a listed building so we cannot get fibre or other fixed line broadband apart from ADSL which is too slow.

At this point I might consider moving to Starlink. Unless there is anything EE can do to sort this. I should be guaranteed 5G speeds through the day too, especially since I've not breached my 600GB Fair use limit at all.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

emeralddude69 — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:02:01 GMT

Hey @acharlwood

I've just posted a similar issue

I'm in the Cambs / Fens area as well and I've noticed it around the same time. It was around the 19th for me.

In my situation I have also tested:

Another phone with EE unlimited data sim
Another phone with a SMARTY (which piggybacks off the 3 network) unlimited sim
The SMARTY SIM in my old 4GEE router with an outdoor antenna.
The EE unlimited sim in the 4G router with the antenna.

All same result of slow DL speeds during the daytime, but at night (Around 11PM) it is fine, slows down at 8AM again. So I don't think it's a 4G / 5G switching issue. It's that we're likely getting throttled from the tower network. Not sure if many more have experienced this, if it's regional, etc.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:09:22 GMT

@emeralddude69 Me too. Very interesting and within the same district (it is North Peterborough area for me). There must be something significant relating to the date, as the pattern can't be a coincidence. My started on 15th March and reported by two customers in completely different areas, so different masts.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

James_B — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:19:06 GMT

Hi All,

The first step would be to report these issues via our network status checker.

If our network team aren't able to find a fault, please escalate the issue with technical support.

Thanks

James

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:24:36 GMT

Thanks @James_B, I reported the issue a couple of weeks ago but didn't contact tech support, I'll do that now.

I'll report back with any relevant info for anyone else following this.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:26:16 GMT

@James_B Thanks for this. My customer has reported this repeatedly over the last few days and keeps being told there are no issues with the network. My experience and knowledge suggests different.

I always find the biggest challenge with EE support is actually reaching someone who understands the problem and can genuinely help to resolve it. Seems impossible to get past the 1st and 2nd level teams. Based on what others are reporting, it sounds like a very specific change to the EE network has been applied as of 15th March (too much of a coincidence to be localised). How do we report what might be a huge problem across the whole region, as this is not just a single consumer or business issue, please?

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

James_B — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:26:41 GMT

No problem, @acharlwood

The team will be happy to take a detailed look at it with you.

James

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

James_B — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:30:30 GMT

Hi @AdamInt,

Looking at your post, it seems your issue may be slightly different.

The issue only affecting some connected devices suggests it may be an issue with the equipment you're using, rather than the network.

Have you tried updating the routers to the latest firmware or discussing it with the manufacturer?

James

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

AdamInt — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:35:29 GMT

I have tried a completely different router and different EE SIM. Identical issues on both (even when the only think plugged into the router is my own laptop via a direct Ethernet LAN port), so I would say the varied readings re: performance must be a slight red herring.

Without any doubt, I have been getting a consistent 1.5Mbps download on a network that has been consistently capable (for over 2 years) of 50Mbps plus.

This is clearly the same problem and the dates tie up exactly to appear like a backbone problem with EE. I wonder is there was a change applied overnight on the 14th March that might have caused a ripple effect?

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

James_B — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:38:06 GMT

Hi @AdamInt,

In that case, I'd recommend the technical support route.

If they're unable to resolve the issue, they can raise a ticket to escalate the problem to our support teams.

James

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:47:37 GMT

Just got off the phone with tech support (I must admit my hesitation was probably PTSD from dealing with Vodafone's tech support in that past - however calling EE was very easy).

Apparently they were doing maintenance on the local mast a few days ago, and it takes a few days for the router's to be able to start connecting again to all the cells (I have pretty much zero knowledge of masts so will take his word for it).

I asked why the DL speed would bounce back so significantly at specific times consistently, and why there were issues relating to tethering when using a normal phone. He admitted he wasn't sure but wanted to rule out any issues regarding repairs etc which makes sense.

In any case, the guy was really helpful and said he's raised a case and will call me back tomorrow as that at least rules out any issues with local maintenance. Also flagged there were a few people affected in the forums (but to be fair from his perspective iIKm sure he hears loads of people saying the same thing re low speeds).

So, will I'm happy with them calling back to check/investigate further if required. Will update here with any developments.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

James_B — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:48:28 GMT

Thanks for the update, @acharlwood 🙂

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 14:53:04 GMT

~~@AdamInt Out of curiosity, for your setups do you restrict to an IPv4 address or use both 4 & 6?~~

I ask as I was having a bit of a mare with IPv6 when setting up my router - so restricted it to only IPv4. I wondered if you did the same? My understanding of CG-NAT is limited, but I just wondered if IP allocation is somehow different during peak times. Having said that it doesn't explain the upload speeds/ping which have been normal throughout this.

Just tried enabling IPv6, didn't help - never mind!

Just discovered something really weird. I thought it might be worth using different speed test providers (as I've been largely using just Ookla). I find google's to be fairly unreliable so tried fast, nperf and BT wholesale. Got some really odd results.

fast.com:

nperf:

BT:

Weird eh? Having re-run the BT test a few times the download swings between 50-70mbps download.

Re: 4G D/L speed consistently dropping from 180mbps to ~4 mbps between 8:30 - 23:00

acharlwood — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 15:09:27 GMT

Sorry to spam notifications, was trying to maintain in one post but the time to edit has expired. Nperf's 15% packet loss seemed weirdly high, some further investigation via packetlosstest:

(This isn't a wired connection, but the 0% upload packet loss indicates the wireless connection is working fine)

And speed.clouflare.com: