Slow internet speeds on EE with unlimited sim card from Amazon

timmothy

timmothy

timmothy

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I bought a years unlimited EE sim card from a seller on Amazon with great reviews and was suggested on Hotukdeals.

Since it's arrived the signal strength seems great but the speeds are terrible. In Bristol it was unusable nearly everywhere. In Bath it was 67mbps and perfect. Now visiting more family in Stanford le hope Essex and it's unusable again. 1mbps download and 0.2 upload.

My speeds were pretty terrible with O2 so that's why I swapped but I'm not sure why this seems to be happening with this sim?
 
Did you check on the EE site what the coverage is like in your area? It's not fully accurate but gives you a general idea: https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee

Is this with 5G or 4G? If 5G, can you set your phone to 4G only to see if it also crops up with the speed problem?

All major networks will have varying coverage and speeds across the entire country so if you can check with local family/friends on other major networks (EE, Vodafone, O2 and 3) on what they get, or even a cheap PAYG SIM, just to get an idea how each one performs in your area.
 
timmothy said:
On the reviews people had screenshots of speed tests over 200mbps
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It's extremely location dependant. There's no network with super fast speeds across the country. There's so many different varying factors that comes into play, such as how far you are from that network's mast, if it has the hardware for fast speeds, and how many people are connected to it as well as using it
 
timmothy said:
Did you purchase that unlimited sim?
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I don't think you're fully getting the point. On EE's fair usage policy, even unlimited plans are not speed capped. But if you consistently use 600gb a month then they will traffic manage you: https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/offers-and-services/other/unlimited-plans

I'm on EE as well. Within central London I see ~450mbps down around Soho. But as soon as I'm around for example the Oxford Circus area, it doesn't work at all and it's mainly due to congestion, where there's too many EE users (and MVNOs that uses EE) in the area. And I know it's congestion because during lockdown I was getting near max speeds. Wouldn't surprise me if Bristol is also having congestion issues.

My home area is around Essex as well, while there are less users so congestion isn't usually a problem, and I can still get 5G, there is a lot less EE masts around and further away, so I'm only seeing 30mbps odd. Checking Standford le Hope on EE's coverage map, they don't even have 5G, so it's probably a similar situation to my home area.

TL;DR version, the SIM is not the problem, it's how EE has deployed their network in those areas.
 
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