EE RAN Misconfiguration

[daviesryan35]

Hey everyone,

I'm raising an issue affecting Exynos Samsung phones on EE's network when connected to Nokia RAN. The issue seems to be that certain bands are basically invisible to Exynos Samsung phones. I also have NSG logs to back this up.

As default, the network is reporting to my phone to look for two N78 carriers (646080 & 636768). But firstly, my site doesn't have N78, and secondly, it's not reporting the presence of other bands to my phone, such as N1 and N28. This appears to be a pretty wide issue on the network, affecting many users and leaving them with absolutely no NR connection, just the underlying LTE network with a ULI (aka Fake 5G, Transparent 5G icon).

When going into band selection on my phone and either locking out n78 entirely OR locking to n1 or n28 specifically, the network then reports the missing bands to my device, allowing me to utilize NR from the site.

I've specifically seen this issue in the following phones: Samsung S21, Samsung S21 Ultra, Samsung S22 Ultra, Samsung A54, all Exynos-powered phones. When using an iPhone 12, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro, Pixel 8 Pro, and S23 Ultra (Snapdragon powered), there are absolutely no problems at all. Just to note, all the Exynos devices have no trouble connecting to Ericsson RAN or Huawei RAN.

I will attach the NSG logs below:
Example of site reporting 2x N78 NR Carriers:

Read more

TickTime : 922.432
Exy LTE RRC OTA Packet
Direction : Downlink
dl-dcch
message -> c1 -> rrcConnectionReconfiguration
rrc-TransactionIdentifier : 1
criticalExtensions -> c1 -> rrcConnectionReconfiguration-r8
measConfig
measObjectToAddModList
[0]
measObjectId : 1
measObject -> measObjectEUTRA
carrierFreq : 1815
allowedMeasBandwidth : mbw100
presenceAntennaPort1 : true
neighCellConfig
neighCellConfig : Not all neighbour cells have the same MBSFN subframe allocation as serving cell
[1]
measObjectId : 2
measObject -> measObjectEUTRA
carrierFreq : 1617
allowedMeasBandwidth : mbw100
presenceAntennaPort1 : true
neighCellConfig
neighCellConfig : Not all neighbour cells have the same MBSFN subframe allocation as serving cell
measCycleSCell-r10 : sf320
[2]
measObjectId : 3
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 646080
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf2
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz30
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -112.0 dBm (44)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 1
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 78
[3]
measObjectId : 4
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 636768
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf2
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz30
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -112.0 dBm (44)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 1
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 78
reportConfigToAddModList

Example of site correctly reporting the NR carriers: (Different site)

Read more

TickTime : 29789.298
Exy LTE RRC OTA Packet
Direction : Downlink
dl-dcch
message -> c1 -> rrcConnectionReconfiguration
rrc-TransactionIdentifier : 1
criticalExtensions -> c1 -> rrcConnectionReconfiguration-r8
measConfig
measObjectToAddModList
[0]
measObjectId : 1
measObject -> measObjectEUTRA
carrierFreq : 6225
allowedMeasBandwidth : mbw25
presenceAntennaPort1 : true
neighCellConfig
neighCellConfig : Not all neighbour cells have the same MBSFN subframe allocation as serving cell
[1]
measObjectId : 2
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 646080
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf2
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz30
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -112.0 dBm (44)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 1
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 78
[2]
measObjectId : 3
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 636768
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf2
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz30
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -112.0 dBm (44)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 1
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 78
[3]
measObjectId : 4
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 529490
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf1
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz15
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -110.0 dBm (46)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 2
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 7
[4]
measObjectId : 5
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 431070
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf1
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz15
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -110.0 dBm (46)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 2
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 1
[5]
measObjectId : 6
measObject -> measObjectNR-r15
carrierFreq-r15 : 156510
rs-ConfigSSB-r15
measTimingConfig-r15
periodicityAndOffset-r15 -> sf20-r15 : 0
ssb-Duration-r15 : sf1
subcarrierSpacingSSB-r15 : kHz15
threshRS-Index-r15
nr-RSRP-r15 : -110.0 dBm (46)
quantityConfigSet-r15 : 2
bandNR-r15 -> setup : 28

This has been a problem for a while now and I hope this thread gets raised to the correct team at EE. It's very frustrating having to buy a different phone just to be able to use EE 5G network properly.

[bristolian]

I suspect I know which team within networks this would need to be raised with, and don't think it's one that the forum staff would normally deal with.

Just out of interest, what makes you think the issue is pretty widespread? I'm not familiar with NSG directly,

[daviesryan35]

I have multiple friends across the UK which have had this issue and I also personaly have this problem across 3 seperate counties. I also wonder if it's contributing to some recent reports of "Study Claims 40 Percent of UK 5G Mobile Connections are Really 4G" where EE ranked the highest of all networks, basically 5G Icon with no 5G Bearer. Lots of the phones used to test are S22s.

[cje85]

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@daviesryan35 wrote:

I've specifically seen this issue in the following phones: Samsung S21, Samsung S21 Ultra, Samsung S22 Ultra, Samsung A54, all Exynos-powered phones. When using an iPhone 12, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro, Pixel 8 Pro, and S23 Ultra (Snapdragon powered), there are absolutely no problems at all. Just to note, all the Exynos devices have no trouble connecting to Ericsson RAN or Huawei RAN

---

Only older Pixels (5 and below) use Snapdragon. From the Pixel 6 onwards, they all use Google Tensor (basically a rebadged Samsung Exynos) so the Pixel 8 Pro should really have the same problem as the other Exynos-powered phones.

[daviesryan35]

Yeah my bad, what I meant to say is they are not affected as far as I know. It's specifically a Samsung powered Exynos issue as I stated near the start "basically invisible to Exynos Samsung phones".

[James_B]

Hi @daviesryan35,

Thanks for sharing your insight.

Our our Mobile Customer Experience Team have been looking into this and a member of the team will be reaching out to you soon.

Please keep an eye on your private message inbox.

James

[ee_user14]

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@James_B wrote:

Our our Mobile Customer Experience Team have been looking into this and a member of the team will be reaching out to you soon.

---

Can they not just "get in contact"? 🙄

[daviesryan35]

Thank you James!

[bristolian]

---

@James_B wrote:

Our our Mobile Customer Experience Team have been looking into this

---

Pleasing to hear this has reached a specialist area.

I've dabbled with NSG but only with the free version, I know certain functions are locked down.

I'll follow the progress of this with interest.

[daviesryan35]

Example of locking out n78 allowing n28/n1 to work: https://streamable.com/fkihi6