Do EE have severe congestion in LE3 on 4g/5g?

[chrcolk]

I have on coverage checker indoor and outdoor 4G.

It used to be consistent round the clock speed in the 100s even indoors.

Now on 4g, in the early hours of the morning I get 115mbps (on essentials plan), and all seems well.

However afternoon and evening it is struggling to clear 20mbps.

Now I also have official indoor and outdoor 5g coverage, the technology that is supposed to unlock crazy high speeds.

An indoor test yields 5-10mbps (wow such amazing tech).
I did an outdoor test and it went up to about 22mbps.

If relevant the phone is a high spec one plus 8 pro, capable of 800-900mbps over wifi.  Also both 4g and 5g have full strength signal bars.

[bristolian]

It's not 5G of itself that achieves high speeds as you mention, it's adding additional carriers - this can be achieved on both 4G & 5G. Quite often additional 4G carriers are added at the same time as 5G ones.

[chrcolk]

Well regardless, its not high speed.

Also looks like its "fake 5G"

According to callmapper I am on band B3, 1846mhz, which according to https://mastdatabase.co.uk/gb/spectrum/ is used by EE for 4G LTE.

Sure enough when I drop the phone to 4G even though the icon changes, it is still on the same band.

My conclusions could be nonsense, but the speed is awful now.

[bristolian]

I'm not familiar with how CM displays 5G connections, but the 1800Mhz band is used for 2G, 4G & some limited 5G services. It's also true that a 5G phone can display 5G service when connected to a 4G-LTE site if 5G-NR is available from a neighbouring cell - this may be what you're seeing.

All things considered, the speed degradation you're seeing is worth reporting - although the LTE/NR discrepancy, whilst interesting, is not necessarily the issue.

Try using the "check status" link on https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee in the first instance - then either "keep me posted" or "report a problem" depending on the outcome.

[chrcolk]

Thanks, I have had to lie about my device though as EE for some reason on that page require you to choose between a very limited set of devices.