Switch from BT to EE unmitigated disaster

[JamesAV]

I had seven years of relative bliss with my BT broadband. After lots of persuasion and the offer of significant discounts I agreed to switch my broadband, landline and TV (previously Sky) at the end of December. Since then we have barely had two consecutive days without the broadband failing. We've had two different routers: the original BT one which i was assured would work just fine and then a replacement EE version which has never worked for more than a few hours without failing. The internet will just randomly cut out and then may, at some point, switch back on. Or not, as is the case right now. I have spent hours on the phone to various EE support staff, had an EE engineer visit (which basically involved a guy plugging in a different router, connecting a few wifi discs (which most of us can do in our sleep) and leaving despite us insisting there was an underlying problem and that it would fail within hours. It did.) Last week, when it failed again  we were offered 'the earliest available engineer appointment' which was the following Tuesday. Then it became Wednesday. And then no one came at all. Just didn't bother turning up despite us waiting around for six hours in expectation. Instead we were sent an email saying everything was fixed. How, exactly? All along EE had been insisting the issue was between the road and our router so how they could claim to have fixed anything without attending the property is extraordinary. And of course we still have the same flashing pink light on the router that we've been complaining about for nearly two months, ever since we were switched to EE. 

As of today, because they didn't bother turning up for the scheduled engineer appointments, we have been told we have to join the back of the queue and won't see anyone (if at all, let's be honest, based on evidence to date) for a week!!! We're just expected to sit here and suck it up. I've paid two months of bills and had probably three days when the internet hasn't failed. Every day I switch off, switch on , (doesn't work) factory reset (doesn't work), switch router (no difference), switch on again on average ten times.  The signal will eventually just decide entirely randomly to come back on then we sit, nervously, staring at the blue light wondering whether it will fail again in the middle of a work meeting or an important phone call or while we're trying to relax in front of the sodding telly. And it will fail. It's the only thing we can rely on.

As you can probably tell, I am taking 'disgruntled' to previously unexplored depths. If I could gather up all the kit and dump it on someone at EE's desk and walk off to to find another supplier I would do so in a heartbeat. I'll be exploring that option with Ofcom.

The level of incompetence is mind-blowing. As if it wasn't bad enough that somehow, in transitioning us from BT to EE's backend they have completely screwed up what used to be a solid, reliable broadband service, they can't even be bothered to try and resolve it. We live in a rural area where mobile signal is patchy so rely on broadband for so much. Our alarm system is screwed, our doorbell, we can't work and our extremely unwell parents have no idea if they will be able to contact us when they need to. 

I feel so horribly cheated. If I had even the slightest suspicion that EE would have sent us into so much anxiety and turmoil I would not have touched them with someone else's bargepole. I truly hope no one else experiences what we have and that our situation is unique. Although It's up to you to decide if you're prepared to take the chance of finding out.

[Peter_W]

Good evening @JamesAV, welcome to the EE Community. 

I'm really concerned to hear about the experience you've had since making the switch over from BT, so I'm going to send you over a private message so we can take a closer look into the best way to get this resolved.

Peter

[JimM11]

@JamesAV What EE Router do you have, and what speed/service from EE currently, link below will let you see the current range if you just wish to click and view your model.

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

[JamesAV]

EE Smart Hub 2023 and/or BT Smart Hub 2. Neither works. We're on Fibre 50.

[JimM11]

@JamesAV Connected to a OR Master socket, landline/DV involved? Are you able to connect Laptop/PC to view info if requested. Take it you tried the EE it stuffed up and went back to the BT Smarthub2? Some more question depending on your answer.

Worst thing to do with the old fttc connection to the OR Master socket, is continually power off/on or disconnect the router. There is a serious potential for the system to slam your router way down to get stability but the change over may have caused an issue, but OR should have found that out quickly when the tested.

Edit: Is it possible for you to take a picture of the cable connecting to the socket so we see what you have and attach camera icon above and post it up. Also detail if OR came fitted new socket etc for the change over or all is still existing home wise and internal was not touched in anyway etc....

[Mustrum]

@JamesAV  You seem to have been very unfortunate with your move, and whilst these things can happen, the way in which it has been handled does not sound good.

From what you have said you are still on a FTTC/SOGEA service and the fault description sounds like an issue between you and the local cabinet - alas the copper circuits are old, and faults can occur with any change of provider.

EE do not have their own engineers, they do have access to a group called QUBE who are called when customer service think the fault is within the property, but from what you said the router lights change indicatiing a line fault.

They also have access to Openreach engineers, who look after the lines, so if they find issues in the cabinet or their test equipment identifies an issue outside your property then there is not always a need to enter your place.

It would be helpful if you were able to report thw router lights changing, better if you were able to log into the router and go to the advance section and find the technical log and post the results here.

Things were easier with an analogue phone, where you could listen for and report noise, these days learning the info within the roter is the next best thing.

HTH

[JamesAV]

Thanks for your  interest, Mustrum. I appreciate the advice. What concerns me is that EE customer service have told me repeatedly that there is no issue all the way to the road and therefore it must be somewhere on our property. The green fibre cabinet is at the end of my road about 250 yards from my property. It was installed as part of a local upgrade in 2019 (we used to get a max 4mbps). The connection from the cabinet to my home is still the old overhead copper connection which, while old, had served us perfectly well for our BT broadband service with speeds in the mid 40s. 

Nothing has been altered inside the property. After a number of calls to customer service an EE 'engineer' (not to be disparaging but the person really had little or no technical knowledge beyond my own) arrived and plugged in a new EE router (the 2023 model I believe). They made no mention of the need to change/adapt any hardware.

The weird thing about the router log is that there doesn't seem to be one. There are 30 odd pages all of them marked from 1 October (!?)

Sample below:

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:10:48, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:10:28, 01 Oct.

admin login success from 192.168.1.119

00:10:23, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:10:08, 01 Oct.

2.4G client Mac: 18:48:BE:E1:11:C1 Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:10:03, 01 Oct.

DHCP device Connected: 192.168.1.119, 00:88:65:3d:03:0e, Jamess-Air

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

DHCP lease issued 192.168.1.119 to 00:88:65:3d:03:0e Jamess-Air, lease duration is 86400 seconds

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

5G Client associate from 00:88:65:3d:03:0e (IP=192.168.1.119) RSSI=-49, Rate=300Mbps, host Jamess-Air

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

LAN [ADD] ARP 192.168.1.119 with 00:88:65:3d:03:0e from br0(wl0)

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

ARP [add] br0(wl0) 192.168.1.119 00:88:65:3d:03:0e

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

Lan IPv6 Neighbour Discovery events: NEIGHBOR_SOLICIT

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

Receive a DHCP request

00:10:02, 01 Oct.

WHW INFO A station (SmartHub2)IF[5G](F0:86:20:77:16:48):STA(00:88:65:3D:03:0E)(Legacy Device) join WHW infrastructure

00:09:58, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:09:33, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:09:08, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:08:43, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:08:18, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:07:53, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:07:28, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:07:03, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

00:06:56, 01 Oct.

WHW INFO WHW Sync config success

00:06:56, 01 Oct.

WHW INFO WHW Sync config success

00:06:38, 01 Oct.

5G client Mac: D8:CF:61:04:5E:BA Deauthentications (Reason:Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS)

[XRaySpeX]

Would you post the Technical Log > Info rather than the Event Log?

[Mustrum]

@JamesAV   as I mentioned, that was not an EE engineer, more likley to be QUBE, and I understand your description!!

As for the technical log, there is another tab on that page showing some of the line stats which is more useful for now.

But the one you showed can also have a filter applied, but is better exported as a fine, once an appropriate filter is applied, but lets save that for now. The other tab would be helpful.

[JamesAV]

Jim, 

First up thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.

I can't answer all of your queries straight away but can confirm there have been no alterations to our internal hardware. We had a new master socket installed around 2019 when our local cabinet was upgraded from copper to fibre (our connection from cabinet to home is still overhead copper travelling about 250m). It's an OpenReach 5C Master socket with separate sockets for data and landline.  

Currently the BT SmartHub is attached because it has worked occasionally whereas the EE version stayed on for about an hour then gave up and stayed flashing pink. We'd restart and occasionally it would come back online for a while then just give up again. In the end it just gave up entirely.

I hope this is useful.