EE Speed Reduction

So we've been poodling away with 4G broadband for a little under a year. I have an unlimited 4G data sim with EE inserted into a Huawei B525-23a. Previoulsy we were getting speeds to c.80mb/s however since about a month ago this has reduced dramitically to around 25-30mb/s. My wife, who has an S8 mobile phone also on EE, also reports speeds similar to that, again where as before it was much higher.

is this a direct result of the current covid climate? Have they throttled users to free up more bandwidth? A check of which mast we're connected to shows the same as before (eNBID 16308). I've also forced it onto band 3 which again was working perfectly before.

Interested to hear others thoughts

In reply to a post by RomaN:

Have they throttled users to free up more bandwidth?

Not throttling, just more users. Everyone at home, rather than spread out across the country, makes more demand on the radio spectrum, and backhaul.

Unlike fixed broadband, mobile broadband shares the capacity with all the users in the sector.

I've noticed exactly same on my 4GEE, I'm waiting a few weeks until all the tourists go home (I'm in a very popular part of North Wales) and hoping matters improve then.

Out of interest, I@m on the 4GEE package so 500GB a month limit, does the unlimited sim data package start throttling at all at a certain amount? Just thinking I could save myself a few ££ if I just scrapped mine and went to a regular unlimited sim?

I too am on EE, 100GB Sim only and have noticed a dramatic change in speeds and it varies at different times.
My local mast has 3 sector antenna's of 4g 800/1800, 3g 2100 2g 1800 and it covers a variable amount of local users as well as campsite locations in my area of Cornwall, the other day 4g speeds where below 5Mbps whereas a force to 3g and it rocketed to 12Mbps so guessing its not back-haul but spectrum. averaging around 15-25Mbps most of day and then night's 20-40Mbps
I will come back to this post after the holiday season and post what differences I have experienced.
Also call quality has decreased and some friends on O2 have said 4G has practically stopped working and they have turned her iPhone's to 3G only and its working fine, so everywhere is swamped atm id guess.
EE speedtest hot spot to iPhone just now
4G Result
3G Result

Edited by thomaswarne01 (Sat 22-Aug-20 18:21:24)

From what I remember, the £34pm Unlimited SIM has a limit of 1Tb, after which you MAY be throttled.

I have had mine for a few weeks less than a year and have observed a large speed difference between daytime and deep off-peak night hours. With an outdoor Omni antenna I used to get 10-20Mbps daytime, 25-35Mbps nighttime. Now I have changed to a Directional Poynting XPOL2-5G-V3 I get 30-40Mbps daytime and 50-55Mbps nighttime.

Indeed with the unlimited £34pm sim there is a limit of 1Tb where they may throttle you however we are never near that.

It doesn't seem to increase significantly in the middle of the night when I've checked - I can't imagine all the holiday makers here are online at 3am.

In reply to a post by RomaN:

It doesn't seem to increase significantly in the middle of the night when I've checked - I can't imagine all the holiday makers here are online at 3am.

I live in a town with no holidaymakers. Back in Feb, before the pandemic, I could get speeds of 80 to 100 Mbit on my 60GB smart SIM in my iPhone XS. In April, thanks to lockdown, speeds were 10 to 15 Mbit.

Now some people are back at work during the day, I’m getting 30 to 45 Mbit, but nowhere near the 100 back in Feb.

Many people are home working, and with unlimited data on 4G, some will be using home broadband, and some using their mobile data. Especially if the home broadband is slow and being used by the kids etc.

Schools going back may reduce load next month.

(My work phone on Vodafone shows similar drops)

Edited by jchamier (Sat 22-Aug-20 20:41:34)

Wonder if all the 4g home broadband customers doing zoom calling and working from home now, (using phones as hotspots etc) are costing the carriers a small fortune in back haul costs, which is why people across most carriers are seeing reductions in speed?

Edited by deleted (Sun 23-Aug-20 12:54:40)

I’m not an expert, but I do not think they pay on backhaul usage as the backhaul connects you to the core. Where the core network connects to the internet, then the same rules apply to any ISP, if they are directly connected (peered) with another ISP, or connected to an Exchange Point such as Telehouse London.

As part of BT, the EE network won’t have an issue here.

Also, the evening streaming period probably has a higher demand than the (mostly) day time Zoom traffic. If they were already equipped to deal with the evening streaming, I'm better than was enough capacity to cover the day time Zoom traffic.