Poor Ethernet and Wi-Fi Connection with 5G Mobile Broadband Router

[Kudzo]

Hi everyone (I'm new to using the community forum).

I want to start by saying that I've had an excellent connection with the EE 4g/5g mobile broadband for the last eight months or so approximately, up until a week ago.

A week ago the connection became spotty, non existent, dramatically fluctuating download and upload speeds, extreme ping rubber-banding.

One moment the download speed will be 2mb with the upload at 30mb.

The next it will be 250mb download and 0.2mb upload.

And yet, no matter which numbers it pulls during speed tests, it is frequently dropping connection.

I spoke with the EE technical team a few times to try and deal with the issue. First guy was amazing. Every network refresh and tinkering to the hub he could do, he did it. But it made no difference. I've reset the hub myself, no difference.

I should not that I am wired (ethernet) to the router. But equally, my phone via wi-fi is suffering as well.

He sent engineers to the area over the weekend. They determined there was no connection issues apparently.

After speaking with an advisor that completely lost her temper at me on the phone, I went into my local store. The guy suggested swapping the simcard with a fresh one. This has not helped either. He said to bring the router in to take it away for maintenance and testing.

I went back to the store with the router today. They would take it away but said I'd be without internet for 7-10 days with no replacement unit/router given to me. This is not good service, EE.

I've done some changes on my Windows 10 PC around the Network Adapter settings and ran a few cmd prompts. Has not helped.

It's not just me experiencing this poor connection. My partner is also suffering on his PC. 

We have not moved the router, there are no new buildings or foliage outside.

We work from home, I am a small business customer. I cant keep losing many hours every day to this. 

I hope you guys can help.

Cheers!

[Kudzo]

I should add that I had a mobile sim that runs on an EE network and when the mobile broadband hub is down/no connection, I switch to my mobiles roaming data. No problems at all. Fantastic connection.

[Abbbbby]

We are having exactly the same issues. Interestingly, we had these problems with our last router but luckily as we were due an upgrade we got a new router and have not had any problems up until the last few weeks where what you are describing sounds exactly like our problems. We are unable to watch tv (sky glass) properly, browse the internet or complete work. I know that it’s the router that is faulty but how can we try and run a business when they won’t give us a replacement or a temporary router? Not good EE!!! 

[Kudzo]

Latest development on the phone with Small Business tech team, the Smart Hub router is showing 0mb internet usage for the last three days. I am constantly on my PC trying to use the internet in-between its spotty connection so this is very bizarre.

Tech have said that there is 'variable 5G indoor coverage' and that if I was on 4G only, it would be fine. I had to tell them that this is not the case because I adjusted the Smart Hub to only connect via 4G and it is still dropping connection, lagging, etc.

They are now going to go away and do some adjustments(?) I think to stabilise the Indoor Coverage. I've been told to wait until Friday for this. 

If this keeps going, I would really appreciate a free cancellation as I am paying for a service that I am not able to use.

[mardyw]

EE 5G LTE business smart hub Not responding

I too think the EE 5G LTE business smart hub possibly has some technical issues

I'm in an area of very poor landline broadband speeds hence the uptake of EE mobile broadband solution

I am an IT engineer, and my observations are over 6 months various win 11 PCS generally with a direct CAT5 connection to the HUB

Positioned in the house for best 4G/5G signal which was good.

Speed tests using various testers wildly varying download and upload speeds one moment download speeds of 60+mbps the next as little as 3mbps and more worrying although a connection would often be 0mbps – these tests frequent and throughout the day and evening.

In practical use internet pages would freeze randomly for 30seconds or more and on long occasions of frustration a hub restart required and all would be fine again and I did wonder if there were DNS issues

Heavens knows how many calls to EE business support they all were very helpful but generally it involved a restart of router and all would be well again for a day or less and in fairness to EE support the problems I was experiencing very random but particularly noticeable in my day work of remote support work where the connection would freeze.

In exasperation I purchased a little bit of software called Net Uptime monitor which continually pings 3 destinations every 5 seconds and records if there is a drop to all 3 of which there was dozens in any 12-hour period!

The software log also reports when there is no ping response from the hub which was happening frequently and often lasting up to a minute and to my surprise.

This I felt sure was the problem, so I purchased a another makes of 4G LTE router same cat5 cable and no problem since.

To add to the story because of my initial enthusiasm of the EE 5G LTE business solution approximately a year ago Three other customers of mine went down this route because of excessively rural slow landline connections and although they did not experience the drops as much as me I being on the internet often continuously and they not other than streaming Netflix etc when they did become exasperated at the drops of connection – I logged and monitored the connections with Net Uptime monitor and behold their EE 5G LTE business smart hubs were experiencing the same. Replacing the hubs solved the issue. My conclusion an issue with that hub! And many businesses likely going nuts

My biggest Grrrr is that on reporting my findings to EE they wouldn’t replace my hub but required I take it to an EE shop a 50-mile round trip and then another 50-mile mile round trip to pick it up eventually