Data speed is abysmal

[Skiltsy]

I have a 5G hub and have noticed that the only time I get decent speeds is in the middle of the night. At all other times, and ESPECIALLY in the evening, the speed is atrocious. I can't even stream a YouTube video without constant buffering. Even when it is 'decent' it still constantly fluctuates and drops to below 10 mbps for seconds at a time. Seems that EE has taken on more customers than their network can handle and now we're all suffering from barely usable data speeds. Is there anything I can do or am I stuck paying £50 a month for the next year for something that isn't working as advertised?

[Northerner]

Hi @Skiltsy 

Have you checked your local network for issues?

https://ee.co.uk/help/service-status

Thanks 

[Skiltsy]

Yeah I checked and it's saying there's no problems. Honestly I think it's just that there's too many customers and not enough bandwidth to share between them, which is why it's faster in the early hours of the morning when not many people are using their phones.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Skiltsy 

If you speak with our Technical Support team when you're getting the slow speeds, they'll be able to run some tests and check the performance of the network in real-time.

Chris

[Chris_B]

@Skiltsy  Have you tried relocating the router,    You might need an external antenna as your home could be causing this issue.     5G signals are not great at penetrating buildings.    Do you have a 5G phone on EE ?  What’s the signal like outside?   A simple test could be just take the router outside if it improves it will definitely highlight the problem that your home is effecting the signal.   While it might be better at late night that just proves there is less devices connected to the network in use so the signal from the mast is less strained.   More devices connected to a mast at anyone time puts strain on a mast and if your home is blocking the signal particularly you’ll. notice this.      You need to test outside to get some idea. 

[Skiltsy]

Yeah, I understand there's less congestion on the network at night. That's really the point I was making. I have both the 5G hub and my phone on an EE SIM and used to get much better speeds than I do now on both of them. As I see it, it either has to be a problem with the mast/network (which it's showing there isn't), or there's simply too many customers putting too much demand on the network at busier times and it can't cope.

But anyway, the signal strength inside the house will fluctuate between one below, and max bars, on both my phone and the 5G router so I don't think it's a weak signal issue. My phone does get faster speed by maybe 10-20mbps at times, but at other times it's basically the same speed on both. I'll test outside when I can (tomorrow) but the router doesn't support an external antenna so that won't be much help to me even if it does help unfortunately.

[bristolian]

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@Chris_B wrote:

5G signals are not great at penetrating buildings.

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5G signals are as great or as bad as any other "G" at penetrating buildings, depending on the frequency in use.

A low-band frequency tends to penetrate better than high-frequency. 4G has 800Mhz for low-band, 5G has 700Mhz - and both perform similarly.

A low-band 5G signal will cover inside a building much better than a high-band 4G will.