5G is a con

[TomH1]

Sat on a train with phone stating 5G at full signal and even basic websites like a newspaper site or TikTok are so slow to load it is frankly unbearable. I am in central London. The situation is the same wherever I go. I have a 16MB Ram OnePlus and the phone is lightening fast.

I have a 45 second screen recording of the Amazon App loading a query for "shoe rack" and still in 45 seconds no query was resolved. 4G, it loads quickly.

I am in central London, next to Euston station. There is no excuse.

Don't get me started when the train starts to move because then it definitely won't work.

This is 2024 people and the signal worked better in 2020 than they do now.

5G is false advertising and yo in should either switch it off or repair it because it does not work. It is slower than 4G in most places. Sick of the lies and the fact that this has been the case for months and months.

[martyncarr1972]

5G has been effectively unusable for me for over a year now and it seems to be getting worse. Mostly my experience is within Somerset. It seems to be there is something fundamentally wrong with the roll out of 5G and the amount of users.

As a for instance. I cross a motorway bridge over the M5 on my way too and from work. If a have to stop near the motorway in rush hour I will lose all data. I know this because I stream radio every day on the journey. Phone will always report good 5g signal but the data rate is too slow to steam anything. 

I have other poor experiences in areas with high user density. Airports and city/town centers etc. I'm at the point now where I know it's not worth trying to use my phone unless I have WiFi. 

Making calls while away from WiFi is also just not worth the effort as I'm constantly getting cut off if just missing parts of the conversation.

You only have to Google to see this is an issues countrywide.

I'm hoping somebody will start class action lawsuit and we can all get some money back in a few years .

[Peter_W]

Hi there @martyncarr1972, welcome to the EE Community!

We always aim to ensure as many locations are covered as possible, but this can vary from location to location, and can sometimes be impacted by technical outages too.

I really do appreciate it must be frustrating if you feel like you're struggling all over though, and this definitely isn't the experience we would expect for customers.

It's worth having a check of the areas you've noticed these issues happening in on our network status checker to see if there are any outages that could be having an impact, along with an overview of general coverage. 

I'd also recommend getting in touch with our technical support team so they can get this logged as a complaint on your account, and have a chat about the experience you've had overall too.

Peter

[Maddop]

I agree. I'm based northwest england. 5g is useless across Merseyside and Manchester, I travel throughout both. Also, when travelling south to London, exactly the same issues. 5g feels like dialup modems back in the day!! 

Previously had a Samsung where I could disable 5g and revert to 4g by using battery saver mode. However new pixel phone doesn't have the option. 

Friends have the same issue based in Cheshire. 

[martyncarr1972]

The full article is behind a pay wall but...

https://www.timeout.com/london/news/why-is-londons-phone-signal-so-bad-right-now-102124

[MassiveAndAce]

I personally have been to different areas (Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, London, Cheshire) around the country and the 5G coverage is diabolical everywhere. It says full or almost full signal 5G and my internet is always atrocious. Turn 5G off and 4G is fine. I've got a Samsung S23 Ultra.

Totally miss sold to us.

However when I used 5G in Croatia, in a bar in a cave next to the sea, it was mega fast.

[robmob]

Switch to 4G when you see 5G busy- it can help- I won't bore you but not every site has been upgraded to 5G yet and your phone is likely biased (for efficiency reasons) to use 5G signals.

And it's not an intended con, it's just how tech rollout works- like upgrading any infrastructure- not every radio transmitter can magically be upgraded to 5G overnight.

Agreed though there can be areas of network congestion- this won't be a network choice- no network wants their customers upset: it will be due to issues beyond their control (planning, power supply, transmission of signals to / from the radio transmitter etc) - it's really a miracle it works so well in London: when you consider the development (signals blocked) and difficulties building or upgrading sites (NIMBYs etc) with LPA planning...

I say this though- if you're not happy get another network PAYG or 1 month SIM and try them out, it's so cheap now.

No network is perfect but it will be boil down to the areas you frequent and who serves them best. Nationally my pick would be EE personally but I have an eSIM back up in case I need it on another carrier- rarely...

[bristolian]

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@robmob wrote:

And it's not an intended con, it's just how tech rollout works- like upgrading any infrastructure- not every radio transmitter can magically be upgraded to 5G overnight.

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And on this subject, 4G is EE's base coverage layer and apart from a handful of extremely isolated examples, is available on every network site  - thus the radio piece is extremely mature and does generally perform very well.

It's therefore entirely normal for the 5G coverage in a given location to be coming from a different site to that of 4G - if that means you get less on-screen bars, too many users get upset & concerned. Unnecessarily so.

[robmob]

No- it's not about being upset or percention- more user experience: where I live the 5G layer trumps the 4G (in terms of selection) and the router loses out, falls over as it can't cope with an inconsistent non-dominant 5G signal.

The necessary s/w or tech to prevent this isn't apparent or doesn't work: 4G only selection is therefore the answer in my case- I don't care what G it is as long as it works.

[bristolian]

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@robmob wrote:

I don't care what G it is as long as it works.

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And therein lies exactly how probably 95% of users probably want it.

Some other users want "the best G" but may not understand some of the implications and/or issues.

[martyncarr1972]

I'm very interested in the expansion of the issue. Wherever the route cause
of the problem though, it's EE who are running a network that is causing
end users to be unhappy. The buck stops with them. If it's not fit for
purpose in certain locations then turn it off or find another solution.