5G upload speed is dreadful

[crediblywitless]

Replacing "teens down, a handful up" over O2 or Vodafone 4G with EE 5G (external antenna, the works) seemed like a good idea at the time, at this rural location, but while I can get 60-odd Mbits/sec down, upload seems to rarely beat 2Mbits/sec and is mostly below 1 Mbit/sec.  This is despite mixing and matching three different routers and three different external antennae, and it's over a period of about three months, so it's presumably not a fault waiting to be fixed.

It's fine for streaming, mostly, but not very happy when it comes to Teams calls, and WFH is one absolutely solid target I need to hit. I would gladly trade 60D/1U for 30-40D/10U, any time.

Do I just give in and go back to O2/Vodafone, or is there some way to actually ask EE to look into this?

[bristolian]

A 3way-comparison would be interesting. Alternative MNO-4G, EE-4G, EE-5G.

Speeds are largely dictated by the carriers deployed, divided by users. Out of interest, where are you?

[crediblywitless]

Location is West Fife, in the hills north of Dunfermline. The Vodafone/O2 service comes from what I think must be a shared mast near a hilltop in the woods that I've visited and is actually O2 from its labelling, but the signal characteristics are identical and the SIMs are interchangeable without significant effect. I've yet to identify which EE mast I'm talking to.

Contention _could_ be an issue, but if that were the case I'd expect speeds (down and up!) to vary a bit based on time-of-day and time-of-week, and they don't appear to.  I could, I agree, try the EE SIM in a 4G-only router, which I haven't done yet.

[crediblywitless]

Pretty sure now from cellmapper.net that the EE signal is coming from Knockhill

[Ali_A]

Hi @crediblywitless 

It may be worth calling Customer Service, where a guide in the technical team can help point you in the right direction with your external antenna. 

This may help improve the signal strength, which in may help increase your upload speeds. 

Ali

[bristolian]

Identification of eNB-IDs and which EARFCN are in use, often assist with investigations into data speed issues.

[crediblywitless]

I can maybe give Customer Service a try, when I can find enough free time. I don't see, though, how upload can be an antenna-pointing problem when I can get 60-80D, very easily. Yesterday afternoon I screenshotted 112D/2.8U at one point, but mostly it's 60D/0.7U.  Meanwhile, pointing in the other direction, I can take down and rebuild a setup for O2/Voda 4G from scratch, with different router and antenna, and get 16-18D/7-8U consistently.

[crediblywitless]

Knockhill is a major comms place, and has been for decades, to my certain knowledge. Mind, I'm getting told it doesn't do 5G but 4G-LTE, which I don't really understand because my (Pixel 5A) phone tells me it's getting "EE 5G" from... somewhere. I do "plain ordinary IT" for a living and some of this stuff is beyond me. Still. Could be any one of Cell0/Cell3/Cell12 from Knockhill EE, which (according to cellmapper.net) gets me CellIDs 5740288/5740291/5740300 and eNB-ID 22423.

Is there maybe a phone app I can use to collect this stuff?

[crediblywitless]

I guess an implication of this, reading it back, is that if I am getting 5G, it isn't coming from Knockhill? I know people are cagey about where 5G towers are because of all the nutjobs. I guess I have to take a deep breath and attempt Customer Service

[bristolian]

---

@crediblywitless wrote:

Is there maybe a phone app I can use to collect this stuff?

---

Yes, Cellmapper itself!  If you have Android.

There's not really "5G towers" as such - all EE's sites are multi-technology and carry combinations of 2G, 4G & 5G.

Depending on your config, I suspect you're seeing 5G-NR available from a neighbour-site other than your 4G-LTE anchor.