Poor Connection of 4G resulting in lag and slow speeds

[kento9]

I'm currently staying at a place with no wifi and have to use my data to play some games and other things. The network seems to be pretty unstable with spike lags of up to 300+ms and going down to around 50ms. I get the spike in lag every second or so and it gets fairly annoying. I have checked if the area has a good coverage using the EE website and it does. I tried to use the 'Service status in your area - Mobile' but it seems it Always has a problem and cannot be used. I'm getting around 23mbps download speed and 7mbps upload speed which isn't great. I'm wondering if there is anyway this connection issue can be solved. 

 I have 3 bars of signals by the way.

[bristolian]

The on-screen bars are a measure of signal quality, which is not the primary driver of data speeds. That's more driven by the capacity available on your serving sites - specifically which bands & carriers.

This is easier to identity on Android than on Apple. Which do you have?

Incidentally in my current location there is a usable 5Mhz of spectrum on B20-800Mhz and cell-edge 20Mhz of spectrum on B3-1800Mhz. Performance reflects this, and data speeds are a tad below that which you're reporting.

[kento9]

Thanks for the reply, 

I am using an iPhone 11 Pro and I know it can't use the 5ghz and is stuck on 2.5. I've used my friends iphone which can use 5ghz to test if it will improve the connectivity but there was no difference. 

Could you tell me a way to access these information for the area? Also is there a way to change what connection you use for 4G like switching the bands on wifi. 

[bristolian]

The 5Ghz & 2.5Ghz bands are WiFi ones, not mobile network radio ones.

The mobile network will actively swap you between available carriers (including aggregation of multiple coverage layers) for best performance, without any user intervention being required.

The simple answer to your question is that if multiple EE users are experiencing similar performance, that's what the network is capable of in your location.

You could prove this by using an Android phone which has much better access to the radio information, with a little understanding of what's presented.

Out of interest, where are you? Feel free to be as accurate or vague as you prefer, bearing in mind this is a public internet forum.

[kento9]

Thanks for the clarification, I am currently in the north part of the town Guildford.