Hi all,
I’m on an EE Pay As You Go plan and recently received a text saying that 5G is now available on my plan. I’ve enabled 5G on my phone (iPhone 15 Plus – 5G On, Allow More Data on 5G), and my phone consistently shows a 5G connection.
However, my real-world download speeds are still around 25–30 Mbps, which is essentially the same as what I was getting on 4G before 5G was enabled. There’s been no noticeable improvement at all.
For comparison, another phone in the same room on O2 5G is consistently achieving around 250–260 Mbps with a strong signal.
I’ve also checked my connection using iPhone Field Test Mode. My connection appears to be 5G NSA with a weak LTE anchor (RSRP around –108 dBm), which seems to be bottlenecking performance. Despite the 5G icon, the experience feels no different to 4G.
I understand speeds can vary by location and congestion, but I’m trying to understand whether this is expected behaviour on EE PAYG.
Are PAYG users subject to any performance limitations, prioritisation, or restricted 5G bands compared to EE monthly plans? Or is PAYG 5G mainly intended for coverage rather than speed?
