topic Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming in TV

Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:49:00 GMT

I foolishly switched from BT to EE last week - the letter I received from BT announcing that Full Fibre was now available to me in my area made no mention of terminating my BT connection and moving to EE. EE wasn't even mentioned. I feel well and truly scammed. Still no access to my online account. Still buffering and freezing while streaming in the evening, rendering it unusable.. Yet I'm sitting here now, 7.40am, 05/03/2025, watching on iplayer with no problems whatsoever. I'm on EE Full Fibre 900, watching via a Firestick into the back of a 16 year old Panasonic plasma tv. I also had no issues, morning, noon, or night, when I was on BT Smart Hub with a far lower speed.

Can anyone explain this? Why can't I stream in the evening? Why can't I access my online account to see how much I'm paying and what I'm paying for? I have less than a week to terminate the contract after the cooling off period. If I have to terminate I will go to the Ombudsman and the newspapers, as well as Watchdog. This lot need to be exposed.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 22:19:53 GMT

I've had full fibre 900 EE broadband installed today. Replaced my BT Smarthub 2.0 which had given me no issues whatsoever. Worst decision I ever made. Every channel on my Firestick buffers, which is totally unacceptable. The picture, when it does work, is absolutely appalling, as you can see from the photo below. I've checked the settings on the Firestick and it says the wifi strength is 'very good'.

I will be contacting BT/EE to come and put me back in the original position I was in before they scammed me into this rubbish. I had reacted to a letter from BT telling me I could have the full fibre package and the cost was £15 pm less than I had been paying BT for the Smarthub 2.0. (I was out of contract).

I'm quite prepared to sue, if necessary. Never again will I think that saving a few quid is worth the hassle. I wish I had read the posts on here about it, but I just thought "what could possibly go wrong". Well, just about everything. Complete and utter garbage. Same thing happened with the mobiles that were switched at the same time. Rubbish service. I requested that they stay with BT now instead of EE. All my other devices work with the new broadband (2 PCs and 3 mobile phones). So it appears that the EE router doesn't work with a Firestick. Now, why dont they ask you if the router will be used with a Firestick while they're trying to sell you all this rubbish in the first place? How am I supposed to know what is and isn't compatible? If I'd known I would have to fork out for a new television I 100% wouldn't have bothered swapping from BT to this crap. It will cost me far more to buy a new TV than I'm saving with the supposed upgrade. Smoother streaming? Laughable. Rant over. Garbage picture

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:46:30 GMT

I'm having a different experience depending on when I am watching the tv via the apps / firestick. I watched ITVX yesterday morning, at around 7am, and it worked perfectly. Yesterday evening, it was unusable, freezing and buffering. This morning - perfectly fine, no freezing or buffering. Why the difference between evenings and mornings?

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 19:03:15 GMT

Day 4. Still unable to link device to app. Unable to check bills, speed, anything. No word from EE. Looks like I'm going to have to cancel the contract before the cooling off period expires.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Cooper041023 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:50:25 GMT

Bewdley13 you are having to put up with so much, I am surprised you are still with EE at all. These companies get too big and the personal relationships are long gone. I am putting up with my situation but its annoying. They know of the issue and for sometime have acknowledged it but done nothing about it. I wont be switching to EE and like you encourage others to do the same. We are a minority and they will tolerate a fall off as its not in their interest to bother, living in more rural areas as I learnt on Exmoor has its drawbacks but in your situation a straight comparison between BT hub 5* and EE hub 1* is a no brainer. Clearly the output signal EE are giving is way lower than BT in my opinion, but I am just a consumer what do I know?

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:42:31 GMT

Still no access to my online account. Still buffering and freezing while streaming in the evening, rendering it unusable.. Yet I'm sitting here now, 7.40am, 05/03/2025, watching on iplayer with no problems whatsoever. I'm on EE Full Fibre 900, watching via a Firestick into the back of a 16 year old Panasonic plasma tv. I also had no issues, morning, noon, or night, when I was on BT Smart Hub with a far lower speed.

Can anyone explain this?

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:43:36 GMT

Can anyone explain this? Why can't I stream in the evening?

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

CBoasty — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:39:33 GMT

This is the same as mine. It’s working fine this morning and is fairly intermittent. The evenings are the worst. Especially when trying to watch champions league on tnt sports… if there is a game on it tends to have the glitching issue and freezes. Internet connection is fine.

everything I read online states it is EE’s end and is to do with the multicast streaming they are providing which is shared streams as opposed to a single specific stream delivered via unicast. I have read you can enable IMGP settings or something on your hub but I cannot locate such a setting on my bt smart hub.
I’m calling EE today as our cooling off period is almost up.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:34:16 GMT

I'm visiting the EE shop in town at 10am.

Regarding the TV, I have no issues streaming the football on my laptop via TNT/BT. My wife was even able to watch the last 20 minutes of Coronation St on Monday night on ITVX via the laptop while the same programme froze and buffered on the TV at the same time. This doesn't make any sense and makes me suspect that my old Plasma tele and firestick can't cope with the speeds....yet it can as long as I'm not watching in the evening? It's all very baffling.

And unacceptable.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Peter_W — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 10:49:05 GMT

Good morning @Bewdley13, welcome back to the Community.

What steps have you tried so far to try and rectify these issues, and have you had a chance to report them to our technical team yet?

I really appreciate how frustrating it must be if your services haven't been up to scratch since making the switch over, but it's certainly not the experience we'd want for you.

If you were looking to potentially escalate this as well, you can find all the information you need on our complaints process here:

EE Complaints Code of Practice - March 2024

Peter

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:12:30 GMT

Hi,

Believe me I have made numerous phone calls and made 2 on line complaints. I visited an EE store this morning and was finally able to access my account by changing the email address to my wife's on my profile. Crazy. An engineer is visiting tomorrow between 12 and 2 pm but I don't see how that will fix the fault that occurs in the evening, when streaming buffers and freezes throughout programmes, making them unwatchable. No explanation as to why streaming works fine on my laptop and desktop but not on the TV. Although the TV is fine during the daytime.

I have just checked my internet speeds after arriving home from the EE store. Bear in mind that this is supposed to be Full Fibre 900 and that this is between 11.45am and 11.55am...I used Which first, couldn't believe the low score (10 Mbps) so used the uswitch internet speed test, too (25Mbps). Unbelievably low scores. Suggests that something is amiss in my area, surely? Perhaps this may also suggest that streaming is actually buffering and freezing during the daytime, too, but by chance not when I'm watching at 7.30am in the morning. As I've said before, this never happened when I was on the BT Smart Hub with a max connection of 65Mbps!

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:13:36 GMT

Hi,

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:16:49 GMT

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:20:57 GMT

This is my so called Full Fibre 900 just before midday today. Checked it as couldn’t believe how low it was. And I’m unable to stream programmes due to constant buffering and freezing.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Profile closed — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:27:50 GMT

@Bewdley13

Is the TV connected via WiFi? If so, is it feasible to try an Ethernet connection to see if that improves matters?

I’m no fan of EE. My transition had/has issues with each service. After 5 months J still cannot access our phone accounts.

The one bright spot is the SH+. Speed to the hub is as it was w my BT SH2, but WiFi coverage in the house is much better. This is a test just done, via a venerable iPhone. And we live in a modern estate; lots of WFH and school kids.

No consolation, I know. Hope the engineer can help.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:36:20 GMT

It’s 12.34pm and I’ve hit the dizzying heights of 62.5 Mbps using Thinkbroadband’s speed tester

. This is Full Fibre 900!

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

XRaySpeX — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:48:58 GMT

Your Which? speeds seem more like FTTC VDSL speeds in reverse.

1. Try a speedtest, preferably wired using an Ethernet cable supplied with the router, here http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html . Click on the "Results Page" button at the bottom of the graph you first see and then copy to here just the "Link to this result:" link that you see below the next main graph.

2. What does BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker estimate for your phone number? Post just the whole table and the line above it, blanking out your phone number. If it doesn't recognise your phone number or you don't have one, use the Address Checker, not the Postcode Checker.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:53:55 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for your response. No, the router is in the hall, around 12ft from the TV, which is in the lounge. Perhaps if the engineer brings a very long ethernet cable...! Having said that, when the TV picture is buffering and freezing, the connection to the laptop works just fine, and it is in the samer room as the TV. All very strange.

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

JimM11 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:54:26 GMT

@Bewdley13 It's time to do an Ethernet test directly connected to the EE Router, also post which router from EE That you have, if not sure then the link below will show Available currently with Pics.

https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/getting-started/compare-our-range-of-broadband-hubs

Re: Appalling service. No access to online account, buffering and freezing streaming

Bewdley13 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:58:05 GMT

Hi @XRaySpeX

Thanks for your response.

I posted the thinkbroadband speed test above. 65Mbps on a Full Fibre 900 EE system.