4G router has suddenly refused to connect - SIM works fine in phone

[kjx1301]

Good evening.  One for the techie folks I think.

I have an a long-out of contract unlimited mins/data PHONE SIM which has worked absolutely fine with no issues in my Huawei B525 router.  Never had any problems except for the occasional maintenance on the local mast when it's been down, but the 4G on my phone has also been down at the same time on those occasions, as one would expect.

My area (BD19 6**) has in the last 24 hours being having "network upgrades" and I experienced sporadic outages overnight until it went down altogether for a prolonged period.  Out of curiosity I put the SIM in my phone and to my surprise it connected to the internet just fine, showing the 4G symbol.

I'm now 24 hours on and the EE network status says from some hours ago "the engineers have fixed the problem, reboot your device (etc)" - not usually necessary as it normally comes back to life on its own, but as it didn't, I went went through several power cycles and also a couple of hard resets with a pin (nothing happened with the pin reset, despite holding the button in for excess of 30 seconds ???)

According to this light guide for the B525  devicehelp.optus.com.au/huawei/b525-mac-os-mojave/installation/guide-to-the-router-leds/  it should be a solid blue light for mobile internet, but all I'm getting is a green "broadband" light and the power light.  When first switching it on, I get these and also my usual 3 signal bars but then after about 5 seconds they all go out then come back on again a few seconds later and this cycle repeats for about 5 mins before it eventually gives up and I just get the solid green light.  Why can't the router "see" the mast anymore, yet if I put the same SIM in my phone it connects to 4G internet just fine? 

I'm deeply suspicious of the timing of the "network upgrades" and now it doesn't connect when there's never been any issue for the past 4 or so years.  EE support staff are predictably useless as it's the standard script they all read from - basically "is the customer able to connect using a different device?  A : yes > not our problem, get rid of him" regardless of the fact that this coincidentally just so happened to stop working as they were upgrading the network  :scratchchin: 

I don't seem able to access the router via 192.168.8.1 anymore either, which is also weird.

[kjx1301]

OK I am fairly convinced this is something at EEs side.  It's like they've blocked the SIMs from being used in third party devices.  If I remove the SIM from the router, then my ethernet option becomes available again in my network settings and I can then log in to the Huawei router admin panel at 192.168.8.1 and access all the device settings under the first menu.  BUT!  The other menus for the SIM Toolkit and mobile settings can't be accessed without the SIM being in the router (obviously).  If I then put the SIM back in the router and restart, the ethernet connection drops and is no longer available, along with the router admin no being inaccessible as obviously the ethernet connection to it is no longer functioning.  Likewise, if I remove the SIM again, after it detects it and the light changes to red, the ethernet option then instantly reappears and I can connect to the router admin again, but can't do anything useful because it needs the SIM installed !

This basically proves there's nothing wrong the router itself and it would appear that EE are blocking the SIMs when detected in these routers.  In case it's relevant, this is an unlocked T-Mobile branded B525-23A and has worked fine with this EE service for the past 4+ years.

I think it's time to cancel my £56 a month and jump ship to Three as nobody at EE has a clue.

[Leanne_T]

Hi @kjx1301 

Thanks for coming to the community. 

Are you able to try another SIM card in the router to see if the same happens? 

Leanne.