topic Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight in Mobile Network discussions

Five days of this, and still no end in sight

dave_101 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:02:10 GMT

So, for the past five days now, the service has been crap.

All we get in the way of detail from EE is

What the hell is the point of this. Occasionally, we get an update saying that the problem will be fixed in 13 hours, but then next morning we're back to this.

Does anyone know who to complain to in order to get a refund?

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

bristolian — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:44:16 GMT

It's encouraging that EE are aware of the issue in your local area and are actively seeking to resolve it - unfortunately not all fixes are as quick as operators or end-users would like.

No network guarantees a fault-free service, but if you want to discuss your individual account you can call 150.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

dave_101 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:22:48 GMT

You could call 150, if there was a working mast in the area.

And even if you can make the call, it then relies on someone on the other end actually answering it.

There is little point in having a status checker that lies to customers. It would be better to remove the ever promising, always missed, 16 hours. I would prefer honesty, rather than something that will continually disappoint.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

bristolian — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 22:11:01 GMT

You don't even need another working site to call EE C/S - you could use WiFi-calling to call 150 or any working phone to use 0800 0798586. Although if the cause of the fault has been logged, the CS agent is likely limited in what they can advise.

What make you so confident the status checker is lying? It's a feed from the EE faults database.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

Mustrum — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 22:16:38 GMT

Do both threads need to be combined?

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Data/Has-something-gone-wrong-with-EE-Mobile-Broadband-routing/td-p/1191605

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

dave_101 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 22:31:42 GMT

Well, WiFi calling is great if you have a working broadband connection... oh, but wait, the whole problem here is that the only broadband connection available to us is via EE mobile broadband... and the tower is down.

And if you lived in the sticks, with miles to the nearest telephone exchange, you'd understand that landlines don't necessarily give an audible signal.

But anyway, how do I know that the status checker is lying? Well, my wife eventually got through to a technical support rep (calling from London), and he confirmed that the mast is (a) broken, (b) needs hardware components replacing, and (c) that EE have no intention of returning to the mast until the 13th.

Now I can do basic maths. Any time on the 9th of December + 16 hours does not get you past the 10th of December. In other words, three days before they can fix the tower.

I do not mind, per se, that the mast is broken. I do care that EE doesn't have the guts to tell their customers the truth.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

dave_101 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 22:35:31 GMT

Maybe, but not really.

There are two issues which are probably unrelated.

One, the mast is broken and the status checker does not provide information that bears any resemblance to the truth. The other is that EE route customers' internet traffic via a US military server.

If you're happy that they're related, feel free to combine them.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

XRaySpeX — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 23:22:57 GMT

I agree with you that they are 2 unrelated issue that should not be merged.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

XRaySpeX — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 23:44:54 GMT

@dave_101 : You are managing to post these posts over the Net. So you must have a working broadband connection. Try calling CS on the Freephone no. (Opt 2) in my sig. on Skype over WiFi. It should be free.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

bristolian — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 10:16:17 GMT

There's a few theories in this, and the other, thread, that may be a little wide of the mark in network architecture terms, but I can sympathise with the underlying frustrations. It's a little hard to follow some detail with the competing threads.

The vast majority of customers who contact EE for network outage queries aren't interested in the technical details of service faults, they just want the service to work, so frontline info is generally geared to this. Data routing is configured at a core/central network level, not individual sites whose purpose is to provide radio coverage.

The same goes for service bouncing between different coverage layers - this is rarely caused by radio equipment going in and out of service, but often by the terminal device jumping between signalling priorities.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

dave_101 — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 13:47:45 GMT

I absolutely agree that most customers just want to know when the service will be back (an aside: the status checker still says 16 hours, even though we know they're not going to revisit the mast until the 13th!).

I'm not sure that there's much that's wide of the mark. The testing of access via 3G and 4G has been explicit, by selecting 3G or 4G in my CPE. That is, either the tp-link Archer MR600 or the Zyxel LTE3301-PLUS that I have at my disposal. At the moment, there's little point in doing much testing, because we know that the mast is broken and is awaiting replacement parts. 4G doesn't work (reliably), 3G is OK but slow (no surprise).

And I think that if I was in EE's position, I'd be trying to leave the mast running with a QoS to offer the best voice connections, and so what if the data-side is a little slow. I really don't mind that it is broken: but a wee bit of honesty without having to call an obviously already overstretched call centre would make more sense to me.

The routing decisions are interesting. I can understand why a 10.0.0.0/8 address range is chosen over the CGNAT range, if you're looking at sheer numbers. I'm not sure that it's a perfect solution, but it is understandable.

The 11.1.6.254 address in the route fascinates me. Yes, it's possible that EE are bouncing stuff to the US military, and an ARIN search would certainly confirm that the US DoD owns 11.0.0.0/8. But I also wonder whether EE are simply nicking a chunk of a very large public IP range and are using it as a pseudo-private IP range? After all, most of the US military's systems are not publicly routable, so stealing their IP addresses shouldn't cause any issues! At least, you'd hope not.

If I put it all together, my feeling now is that the original slowdown in performance was attributable to failing hardware at the mast. Hopefully, when the replacement parts arrive and the mast gets fixed, the performance will return. And on balance, the likelihood is that the 11.1.6.254 address that appears in the route is from a bit of imaginative IPv4 address management within EE (roll on IPv6!). I can imagine that there might be a Layer 2 shunt from the 10.0.0.0/30 gateway address that is handed out, so that it is a pseudo-private 11.0.0.0/8 addressed router that responds on to the Layer 3 data.

But that's just a theory 😀.

Re: Five days of this, and still no end in sight

bristolian — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:02:29 GMT

I would not take the info you've been given by CS re the nature and target for the fix, with complete gospel.

Decisions on whether to leave degraded sites in service or to remove coverage entirely, involve weighing up various factors - I've known different operators take opposing decisions based on apparently similar factors.

Out of interest, which individual 4G layers are you seeing problems with?