Smart 5G Hub - No Upload Speed & Constant Connection Drop Off

[49BW]

Hi all,

I’ve been with EE for some time now and while the service has occasionally been patchy for a day or two, over the past month it has become close to unusable. We are using the Smart 5G Hub, while download speeds are generally strong (between 30–100 Mbps), upload speeds are consistently slow, typically between 0.01–0.1 Mbps.

We’ve tested the router in various locations around the house, turned off 5GHz, disabled 5G (running solely on 4G), various combinations of all of these, and haven’t seen any improvement. At this point, the connection is so unreliable for every 30 minutes of use, we’re experiencing around 15 minutes where websites and video calls simply won’t load.

I’ve attached a few screenshots which I hope are helpful. Any thoughts, suggestions, or fixes would be greatly appreciated.

[Lapwing1]

We're experiencing exactly the same. Had the Smart Hub for about 9 months and all has been well, with download and upload speeds all respectable. Came back from a few days away and the Hub is regularly dropping connection. Ran a ping last night (on a computer directly connected to the Hub) and had a 3.3% packet loss, which has today worsened to 3.9%.  

Nothing in our household set-up has changed. 

Googling suggests the Hub has had issues, with IPv6 and software updates. I'm wondering if EE have run an update and it is affecting some of us.  [When we were on a landline and with Zen Internet they ran an update which affected a minority of users, we suddenly found ourselves unable to access certain websites and streaming services].

So my money is on EE having carried out some sort of update that has left some users like us with serious connectivity issues.  Have just had to give up on watching Final Score on the iPlayer as it is dropping every other minute.

EE - please sort. 

[Lapwing1]

Update - following advice I've amended the Profile setting to IPv4 only (it had been IPv4 v6) and so far we've not had a dropped connection for 20 minutes - which is progress! 

[Chris_S]

Hi @Lapwing1 It's great news that you've not had any connection drop offs, I really appreciate you getting in touch with the update.

How is your service this morning?

Chris S

[Lapwing1]

The service has improved after the change to IPv4 only - not sure when EE plans to upgrade software or whatever is needed in respect of IPv6, the forum suggests this problem has been ongoing now for several years.

While we are no longer getting the connection drop-outs and the packet loss has reduced it is still over 2% (2.3% loss overnight) which I understand suggests that the connection is not as stable as it should be. 

Overall the network speed has improved through the change to IPv4 only.

So something is awry within EE's network  infrastructure and it's fortunate there appears to be a workaround. 

[Chrstphr]

I've had similar problems with my EE 5G Hub for the last week, which has made streaming video unusable, and webpages often fail to open because they've timed out, despite a strong 5G signal.  OOKLA reports download speed >200Mbps but the detailed view shows extremely high download ping speeds of up to 6000ms.  

I found a separate discussion for Sky users with similar problems, and a recommendation to set up a new profile for IPv4. I don't use Sky but I've made the same change this morning anyway, and its been working reliably so far.   https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Broadband/5G-Smart-Hub-Problems/m-p/1494066#M32707

But what is the impact of that change to profile - are there any disadvantages to using IPv4 instead of IPv4v6?

[49BW]

Thanks for the suggestion. I’m now also testing an IPv4-only profile and so far, I haven’t experienced any dropped connections!!

Speeds however do remain abysmally slow on my end particularly on the upload side. I’ll continue monitoring and loop back with an update.

[Lapwing1]

From what I can see IPv6 is supposed to be an improved version of IP...  So no downside if IPv4 works for us. 

[Lapwing1]

Do you have a 5G phone you can compare down/up speeds to your Hub with?

[Chrstphr]

When will EE provide a permanent solution, or at least inform telephone tech support that the workaround is to change the profile?   Incompatibility with IPv6 addresses has been a problem for at least 4 years. (link below). https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Broadband/Fix-for-5GEE-WiFi-Hub-IPv6-internet-issues-over-ether...

[Chrisdoe]

We've been having the same issues for the last 3 weeks nearly. All was working fine and then suddenly non stop issues and unreliability on our end. How's your service doing currently?