Customers of EE’s 1.6Gbps UK Broadband Package Suffer Sharp Speed Loss UPDATE2
Some customers of mobile and broadband ISP EE (BT), specifically those on their top 1.6Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP) package via Openreach’s national network, appear to have spent the weekend suffering from a significant reduction in download speed (some down to c.50-70Mbps), connectivity problems and a lack of effective support.
At present, EE’s premium 1.6Gbps speed broadband package (includes 120Mbps uploads) doesn’t have a huge number of subscribers, but some of those who are taking the service started complaining to ISPreview on Saturday morning about a significant loss of download speed. A few have also seen their upload speeds reduced to c.20Mbps, while others have found that the issue only impacts downloads.
In addition, a number of customers on the same 1.6Gbps package have also complained about problems getting connected to the service (PPPoE cannot authorise), although it’s unclear if this is directly related to the wider problems with service speed or merely an unrelated incident. But it’s hard to ignore the proximity of both events.
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“EE are aware (I have just spoken to support on the phone), but they have yet to update their status page … I am meant to be on the 1600/120 profile, but currently seem to be limited by a 80/20 profile,” said Jim, one of ISPreview’s readers. “Since Saturday evening, there have been an issue with EE’s flagship 1.6Gbps product. Some users have no connection with CHAP related errors in logs, others appear ‘stuck’ at 70 Mbps (myself included),” added Chris, another impacted customer and reader.
Various related complaints can also be found on EE’s Community Forum (here and here), which echo the same problems and raise concerns about EE’s current lack of an official response. Customers who have contacted EE’s support department have allegedly been told that the issues should be resolved by the end of today, while others have been told it may take longer. One person was also informed that the speed issue related to a “software defect” of some kind, which sounds plausible.
ISPreview has already contacted EE for a comment, and we will report back when one arrives. Sadly, it’s not unusual for support teams, even at major ISPs, to be somewhat less effective at responding to such issues when they occur over a weekend (especially so around school holidays).
UPDATE 12:29pm
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We’ve had somewhat of a vague response from EE, which confirms that an issue exists, yet provides no details or ETA for when it might be resolved. The provider did however indicate that the issue is NOT related to a software defect.
An EE spokesperson said:
“We are aware a few broadband package customers are currently experiencing issues with their connection. We are working hard to fix this as soon as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience caused”.
UPDATE 18th Feb 2026 @ 8:15am
Some customers began reporting that their service started to return to normal late yesterday afternoon. As usual, EE has not yet provided any official explanation for the significant disruption, which lasted for a worryingly long amount of time.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Zone Broadband UK ISP Users Complain About Loss of Service and Support
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Ah just got off the phone with an EE advisor myself, chap had no idea what was going on until a very short chat with the team who support the ‘new system’, nationwide apparently. Did let me know that I was on a slow profile and tried to change it for me but no dice.. Current speeds of 74/115, upload apparently unaffected.
Oh dear. Another day, another BT/EE incident.
I thought they were flawless according to the BT protectors on this site? Isn’t this sort of thing just down to Altnets like they say because they are not “mature” enough?
not sure anyone’s ever used the word “flawless” – certainly this alleged BT shareholder has not done so. The difference will be in how long it takes to resolve.
as another anecdote – the EE 1.6 line I have custody of seems to be working fine. So not sure if it really is everyone or perhaps it depends on which BRAS you are on.
Yes because an issue specifically with the top tier package on EE hardly anyone is on is the same as Community Fibres DNS servers going down every other week
The OP of this message should just give it a rest with the constant trolling. Its not funny and it is just becoming a nuisance in the comments section of every BT, EE or Openreach adjacent article posted on this site. Literally nobody cares about their hatred of Openreach.
I actually find the constant BT bashing rather amusing. Many years ago, my father tried to get a landline service in his house. BT refused to do it until he paid off a bill that the previous owner of the property didn’t pay. Obviously, my father thought this was absurd and told them to do one so I always enjoy seeing these kinds of comments.
Hello “Some Edinburgh Guy”, needing some “unconscious bias” training?
I don’t have any issue with BT/Openreach. I may have issue with the choice of (legacy) product chosen compared to competitors, but not an issue with the company like you indicate.
Seeing as you want to advocate impartial postings – I expect you also mean the Altnet bashers lay off then.
Have a good day!
Weird and babyish comment.
What is 84.08khz? Please explain.
This is a forum for comments on news items – not a adoration only form for any company.
I substantiated my reply in that “Some Edinburgh Guy” had unconscious bias and jumped to what THEY thought. I corrected them.
I don’t intend to post sycophantic replies because I have no ties to any company, unlike a number of known posters on here.
And babies cant read the news item or post either. FACT!
Me too. After a reboot I now have an upload faster than my download:
https://www.speedtest.net/result/18851341311
The speedtest gives me 80 download 115 upload!
80/115 the download option from EE! Only £70 per month 😉
Could be worse… 35/135
https://www.speedtest.net/result/18851674257
Absolutely no communication from EE and fobbed off by support…. 3 days in a premium product should not still be broken. Absolutely poor showing from EE/BT.
Thank you to all the loyal EE fans for being beta testers. Your service is appreciated!
No problem here (north east England) but I’ve never had over 112Mbit upload. Usually around 108.
This is why you should avoid altnets at all costs. No support at the weekends.
Oh no, wait…
Toob solved my problem Sunday afternoon;)
“Sadly, it’s not unusual for support teams, even at major ISPs, to be somewhat less effective at responding to such issues when they occur over a weekend (especially so around school holidays).”
That’s because we’re told no more (often less) than the public are most of the time!
Not that this helps those on the 1.6Gbps service, here on my 900/~100 connection, I’m getting my usual 920/110 speeds on EE with around 3-4ms latency. When I was on BT, it was consistently faster than that and had 2ms latency on average. I’m struggling to see the benefit of the 1.6Gbps service even for busy households, other than a nice to have compared to 900. If the upload speed was far greater, it’d make more sense.
Interesting you saw a latency change on moving from BT to EE.
EE broadband is just BT’s with a different billing/support wrap. When I moved from BT to EE my connection didn’t even drop (use my own router) and the IP addresses are still BT ones now.
Same as you I’m not seeing an issue on the 900 product, I know they had to do something different to get 1.6G working for EE so guess something there has broken. Anything is possible from BT, I recall years ago they moved my 80/20 to 40/2 when doing something totally unrelated!
It does seem to be a large issue, I ran the speed test from the EE app and it flagged that the connection to the hub was below the guarantee and arranged a call from the EE team, but they’ve been instructed not to put calls through to the 1.6Gb service team at the moment. Presumably there’s nothing they can do on an individual connection level and are waiting for something bigger to be deployed.
I am on the EE 1.6 package here in Devon, and since Saturday I have been getting 50mbps download and 113mbps upload, I have been on the service for nearly two years and normally I do get around 1.6Gig download, which when I have run a DUMeter 1 min test equates to just over 12gig of data in 1 min. Can’t complain much as like I have said its been around 95% solid, mind you i am a bit miffed that new customers can get 1.6Gig for £49.99 where loyal customers have to pay £75.99 .. Hoping th new IT team at EE who look after the 1.6 Gig connections sort the issue out soon, and with that teh customer advisor I have just spoken to said they can’t help at the moment as their internal systems are down.
Actually its now down to £44.99 to me at the minute – bargain.
is this issue with just EE or others ISP’s with 1.6?
I’m on 1800/120 with IDNet (Openreach/Zen). No issues here.
I hope Kevin Bacon isn’t trying to land a plane right now…
After being on 1.6Gbps for over a year – dropping down to 74Mbps is horrible! Please resolve this EE!
Glad I didn’t go to EE for full fibre 1.6Gig. Best wise decision to stick with 900/110.
For those impacted I encourage you to log an official complaint here https://ee.co.uk/contact-ee/complaint/form
EE need to be held accountable and mitigations implemented to prevent this happening again.
EE were Uswitch’s broadband provider of the year last week with an honourable mention for best customer service. They don’t seem to be living up to either award.
I just got off the phone with them, they say they’re aware of the problem and it should be fixed in 1-2 days.
Andrews and Arnold would have had it fixed in a jiffy 😉
https://ee.co.uk/help/service-status still shows:
Service status in your area:
Broadband
Good connection
Pathetic!
Looks to be EE specific. My off-net service from Ogi (over Openreach 1800/120) has been rock solid on speed for months. Speed tested at 1.71Gbps just now.
As is often the case it’s not the Openreach network, it’s the service wrap you run on top. Hence why EE broadband and BT are both currently at 1.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot and Zen are at 4.4 out of 5 despite running (mainly) over the same network, using the same wholesale product.
EE’s 1.6 doesn’t run on through BT Wholesale
Very true. I am reminded of the time my Zen line had reduced speeds from morning to midnight. Unlike this issue it took *weeks* to escalate and resolve. I wasn’t the only one with the problem, there was a long running forum thread over on that other website about it. Zen CS was already TalkTalk-grade by this point.
That same line has performed flawlessly on BT for several years since.
NOT WHAT I WANT FROM EE, WHEN I PAY FOR 1600 Mbits/sec DOWN!!!!:
hughjanus@router:~$ iperf3 -c speedtest2.lightningfibre.net.uk -p 4000-4007 -R
Connecting to host speedtest2.lightningfibre.net.uk, port 4000
Reverse mode, remote host speedtest2.lightningfibre.net.uk is sending
[ 5] local 86.181.108.246 port 57500 connected to 194.24.162.86 port 4000
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 8.62 MBytes 72.3 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 9.00 MBytes 75.5 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 9.00 MBytes 75.5 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 8.88 MBytes 74.4 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 9.00 MBytes 75.5 Mbits/sec
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 90.5 MBytes 75.9 Mbits/sec 166 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 88.9 MBytes 74.5 Mbits/sec receiver
Now on day 4 of the outage and still no acknowledgement from EE there is an issue. Customer support haven’t got a clue whats going on and you get a different story every time you call
I had acknowledgement from EE that this is a P1 issue now but also acknowledgement that they have no timeline on a fix at all. I’ve had no internet since 12:30pm on Saturday which is actually insane.
No fix, no communication from EE, their support staff don’t know anything.
Faults happen but this shouldn’t have caused this level of confusion within EE.
I know it doesn’t help with the immediate issue – but everyone affected should complain here and hold EE accountable – https://ee.co.uk/help/contact-ee/complaint/complaint-form Do not agree to closure until EE have provided answers.
I’m also effected, currently getting 70mbps, I feel bad for the users with nothing, this is unacceptable from EE!
We pay a high price for 1.6gbps and we deserve acknowledgement regarding the issue!
Day 4, and still just over 50mbps, yet they keep taking the £75 a month for this, I work in IT as a network systems manager and if I had an issue lasting this log, I would be sacked, this is totally unacceptable and somebody should seriously be held accountable, wtf is going on EE, sort this issue out surely its not that hard, I mean with the resources you have available , I seriously hope that you EE are going to credit everyone of your 1.6Gig customers properly , like a months credit on their account, just home again tonight (Day 4) and still the same just over 50mbps .. wtf this is a joke ….
Everyone affected – you need to speak to “New IT” team.
This has since been fixed, I have the 1.6gbps Package and Speeds have returned to normal. I expect a Spokesperson for EE to Make an Announcement shortly.
I would not expect any announcement given EE Broadbands’s prior in similar outages.
Back to normal now.
It isn’t just 1.6m services affected. My BT 900mbps service stopped working overnight. The BT New IT team tell me it’s due to this ongoing issue.
Speaking to EE as I write this. The call handler seemed to know that they have an issue and was trying her best but told me she was only allowed to do certain things. She has escalated this to her manager and is raising a complaint.
When the slow speed started, I filled out the online complaint form here:
https://ee.co.uk/contact-ee/complaint/form
A nice chap from EE has just contacted me, and refunded me £36 as compensation.
He also confirmed that 11,000 people had been affected by this issue.
I wonder if that means only 11,000 people subscribe to the fancy 1600/120 tier…?
Sounds about right as a proportion of the customer base. He really shouldn’t have told you that, oops!