Tips for improving 4g/5g connection

[WHarris]

Having a frustrating time at the minute. I just switched to a All rounder unlimited plan with EE from three, to find my data connection in my flat worse.

The strange thing is, on the coverage checker it says I should have excellent 4g and 5g connection both indoors and out. I don't. I can barely get anything. What's annoying is that if I have a 1 or 0 bar 5g connection, it works. The second the bars go up to 2, 3 or 4. The Internet completely stops working. I'm also having to hot spot at the moment because sky messed me around with broadband, so getting any sort of half decent speed is vital. 

I picked EE because with excellent 4g coverage both indoor and out, as well as being the fastest 4g provider, I thought would help.

Can anyone provide any tips to improve this connection? I even tried to stop my phone connecting to 5g all together and just use 4g but the same issue. 0 or 1 bars, it works. Anything higher, it stops.

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

You've raised a few bits here. First off - onscreen bars are just a rough indicator, different phones & even different SW versions can measure the exact same signal differently, and the bars do differ between radio techs i.e. 2G, 4G, 5G.

I suspect what may be happening, is that your zero-throughput connections may be happening when your phone is connecting to one specific site or sector, and this happens to give a certain number of on-screen bars. The interworking between 4G-LTE & 5G-NR may also be complicating - the phone & network will prefer a "higher G" providing the radio measurements are satisfactory.

Depending how technically-minded you are, and whether you're using Android or Apple, there are ways of identifying which site/sector you're using when you have problems. Otherwise, your best bet is to report your issues - initially via the status checker, and then via CS.