No 4G, no Wifi Calling, non-existent signal with EE

[Demonnus]

Hi everyone,

As support for the EE signal booster box is being discontinued as of the 30th of June, I've found myself in a situation where I'm going to be completely without phone signal.

Here's my situation:

- Signal has been non-existent where I live, no bars either indoor or outdoor. According to the EE coverage checker this is correct for 3G but they state 4G as being good coverage. I've checked with an EE tech advisor and they say my plan and sim are enabled for 4G (I've been with EE since the days of T-Mobile). They took me through additional trouble shooting but no solution was found. Additionally, I've never seen 4G appear on my phone at all, even when out and about in areas with good coverage
- I currently have a Huawei Honor 10 phone which doesn't appear to support Wifi Calling with EE (not one of the supported phones according to their list).
- Thus I now find myself in a forced scenario where if I want to use a phone at home, it looks like I'll need to buy a new one that supports Wifi Calling with EE.

What I'm hoping to find out:

If anyone has any other ideas as to why I'm not receiving any signal at all, especially with 4G I'd be grateful.

Also, if I buy a new phone outright that supports Wifi Calling, not through EE but a different retail outlet, will I still be able to use Wifi Calling on the EE network or am I restricted to buying a phone from EE that supports this functionality?

Many thanks for any help offered.

[Chris_B]

@Demonnus  you don’t need to purchase a phone directly from EE to have Wi-Fi calling but if the device does support Wi-Fi calling there is no guarantee that it will work with EE Wi-Fi calling this is a risk that you have to take upon yourself.   Most likely it will work but there are no guarantees.  

Is your sim a 4G sim ?  Does it have a EE logo on it ?     I’ll say it’s not a 4G sim so because of this you’ll not see 4G on your device,  but have you enabled 4G from within your device mobile data options?  

[Demonnus]

@Chris_B Thanks for your reply and help Chris.

I've checked my sim and it appears to still be an older T-Mobile one, no EE logo. On my phone within Settings > SIM Management, it shows as EE 2G/3G/4G. When looking at Settings > Mobile Data > Preferred network mode, this is set as 4G/3G/2G auto and cannot be changed to anything else.

Would you say I should contact EE again to request a specific 4G sim? And thank you for the advice regarding Wi-Fi calling, I'll bear that in mind.

[Chris_B]

@Demonnus   You need a new sim, no T-Mobile sim supports 4G.  

[bristolian]

If you text NUMBER to 150, does the text response say that you're on an EE plan or a legacy (Orange/T-Mobile) plan? You need to be on an EE-plan to access 4G services.

EE will only support WiFi-calling & 4G-calling on devices they have supplied, but the service will usually work on third-party sourced/SIM-free phones.

[Demonnus]

Thank you @Chris_B and @bristolian 

I recently tried explaining the issue over an online chat with EE but they couldn't appear to grasp the concept of the problem I was having and ended up going down the troubleshooting route as to why I had no signal.

I'm heading to my local EE shop at the weekend in hope of getting things sorted. Thanks again for the help.