Upgraded to Full Fibre - Low Speed, High Packet Loss, No Resolution

[evans57]

Last Friday, we eagerly upgraded from 72mb EE internet to Full Fibre Gigabit (900) and have had nothing but issues ever since. We already had a Smart Hub Plus SH31B so EE didn't send new equipment.

We are seeing terribly slow speeds, EE's speed test within their own app often showing 2-4 Mbps (nowhere near the guaranteed 700 Mbps) and Openreach's preferred speed test site fast.com not going higher than 140 Mbps at all. ee.co.uk itself takes almost 2 minutes to load all the images, it looks like I'm back on dialup from the 90s.

2 Mbps on EE's own speed test within their app

Packet loss is unbearable and makes gaming impossible, and video streaming on netflix, disney+, amazon prime video is impossible as it constantly buffers, seemingly due to the packet loss.

packet loss on Call of Duty PS5 (connected via ethernet)packet loss on Xbox (connected via ethernet)

traceroute to EE's primary DNS server listed on the SH+packetlosstest.com result

It's been almost impossible to get any support from EE's "Tech Guides", after the usual "lets try rebooting your router" they want to schedule an openreach engineer to visit. We've had 2 openreach engineers visit now, both have run multiple tests including their full SFFP test which show the line itself reaching speeds of 825 and 900. As soon as we reconnect to EE, speed is crawling again. Openreach have replaced the ONT, swapped the fibre to another port on the CBT, and confirmed no faults or alarms have been noted on the line. The light reading on the fibre into the property reads -15, which is meant to be a good strength. Openreach also rebuilt the config their side, but no change. 

Openreach tried to get through to someone higher up at EE to escalate and were told EE would send a new Smart Hub Plus SH31B, we waited for this to arrive and it didn't make any difference either. There literally is nothing else we / openreach can do at our property to eliminate issues so we're stuck hitting a brick wall trying to get EE to investigate further.

What makes it worse, also last Friday our next door neighbour had their full fibre upgrade, 500 Mbps through BT Retail, and they are getting their full service and not experiencing the same problems. They are connected to the same CBT as us (its just us 2 connected as it's only just become available in the area)

EE tech guides claim they've never heard of anyone have such issues, although the Openreach engineers hinted that the majority of their repair calls at the moment are to EE customers with issues not too dissimilar to ours.

Has anyone else had similar issues on EE's Full Fibre service and reached a positive conclusion with EE? Any advice on how best to escalate this would be appreciated

[evans57 · Accepted solution]

Just to close this out, after 4 Openreach engineer visits, all whom were very professional and carried out all their checks even though we had an extensive history on our account proving the line was fine. In the end I had 4 openreach engineers, 3 replacement ONTs, new cabling, port switched on the CBT, config on Openreach's side rebuilt 3 times, but after all of this EE still wouldn't escalate to anyone at BT Wholesale who could fix the actual problem higher up the chain than openreach.

I cancelled within the 14 day cooldown period and had Sky activated this morning. Zero packet loss, full speed from Sky on the exact line EE couldn't service.

Don't let them fob you off that it's an openreach issue if the openreach engineers have been and confirmed their equipment is fine. Theres an issue at EE / BT Wholesale which they are refusing to acknowledge / deal with

[infinidim]

@evans57like you I am leaving EE to move to another supplier. I am moving to Vodafone, initially with Openreach copper access then moving to City Fibre once it is available.

The issues about trying to get BT Wholesale to do anything is not a new one. It's been going on for 20+ years to my knowledge. Even if you work within the BT GROUP they are not reactive - don't ask me how I know this.

Openreach are reasonably good at fixing things as most of the issues are relatively easy to fix and they have been given some reasonable tools to diagnose the issues. Their biggest issue currently is enough budget to get the full fibre (FTTP / FTTH) rolled out in a timely manner.