T-Mobile in the UK

Is it possible you've maxxed out the 5G allowance and are being throttled back to
the lower speed?

Assuming you have an Iphone, go to Settings->Cellular->Network Selection. Turn off automatic, and wait a couple of minutes. Eventually a list will appear with different carriers you can select. This has always helped me when I come across slow speeds overseas.

I am nowhere near my limit and I don't have an iphone.

I tried switching providers but I keep getting sent through T-mobile USA.

i'll write them to see what's happening. I may have to download an esim for data if I can figure out how to do that.

I was in London in October and I had multiple occasions where my network connection would just drop and I would show no service. Eventually, I would be able to reconnect, but I couldn’t figure out what the issue was and I was only there 3 days before flying home. I did not have this problem when I arrived in London in September. I had paid for the 30 day upgrade, so it was not an issue of using my data allowance.

Has it just started today? Three UK is having issues; could that be impacting your service?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67595457

I spent 5 months in continental Europe with the T-Mobile One plan and had little if any appreciable differences in speed from what I'm used to at home. Then I went to Ireland, and it got slower. Now I'm in the UK and data speeds are so slow as to be completely useless. I can't use Google maps, I can't look up restaurants, I missed a train because downloading the electronic ticket took over 20 minutes in Glasgow! There is just enough speed to keep me trying, sometimes for a half hour, just to open a single webpage.

I have barely used any of my data for this month, but I'm throttled to 1990s speed.

The local carrier is EE. Vodaphone UK shows up, but can't connect.

Honestly, it makes the UK seem very backwards, or just miserly compared to every other country from Serbia to Portugal. I guess I have to go buy a SIM card, like I would if I went somewhere with no international roaming.

I spoke to the folks at T-Mobile a couple of weeks ago when I was in the UK.

The person I spoke with said that they only offer 5G in the UK with EE. However, like you, I got dial up speeds even with EE.

So, basically, the UK is no go with 5G these days.

The UK is a competitive market for mobile. It kinda sounds like T-Mobile is throttled for business reasons to me. I'm on EE, 4G mind, and I get about 30mbit/s download and about 5-10 up. From what I gather, I'd be getting good 5G speeds if I had the device here in London.

Edit: I just ran a speed test, and I'm getting 12mbit/s down and 11 up. That's in my basement flat. I'd probably get a bit more out in the yard. I've seen 30mbit/s at home and had recently considered switching my wired internet to cheap unlimited data SIMS in a 4G router.

In 2013, parent company EE began to withdraw the T-Mobile brand, with the website closed and redirected to EE. As of February 2015, new T-Mobile connections are no longer possible for new customers and in early 2019, they would have to switch to EE or have their service terminated

From the Wikipedia page "T-Mobile UK". EE are basically trying to kill off the T-Mobile brand in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Mobile_UK#Merger_with_Orange_UK

These are both pretty strong anecdotes (from Frank II and ian brown) in this thread for not using a US-based T-Mobile plan in the UK.

Frank, I had a lot of problems with cell service in the UK as well. I'm not sure what it was, although it was more the lack of service than the speed, but I also had problems with speed. I wound up turning on data roaming, which I normally don't like to do, but it did help with the service.

But I also heard from locals who complained about cell service in the rural areas as well. I don't remember having problems in London, though. What areas have you been in?

ETA: That's interesting about EE, Gerry. I was on Vodafone when I first got there, then in more rural areas, it went to EE.

ETAA: But Gerry, what about Scotland? I was in Scotland last year and my service and speed was great. I never lost service and while I didn't have 5G most of the time, what I had was very adequate and more than I expected. Why would England be different from Scotland? Doesn't EE cover both?

I wouldn't expect there to be any difference in EE service between Scotland and England, though of course there may be some differences between rural and urban areas. Ian Brown (probably not the same one who fronted the Roses) reported it was slow in Glasgow. The speeds I talked about were in London.

The surmising I was doing was just along the lines that T-Mobile is a brand that did have a presence in the UK at one time, but has gone. EE possibly don't want any T-Mobile customers on their network at all, so the slow speeds reported are something of a disincentive. "Dial up speeds" aren't something I'd expect anywhere in the UK these days, except maybe in the most far-flung corners. Call me suspicious, but I think the slow speeds reported by Frank II and Mr Brown are because of deliberate throttling. I feel T-Mobile might be selling their customers going to the UK a bit short.

Well, I was going to mention that in a different thread but here is a good place. I had an issue with T-Mobile.

So I arrived in the UK on March 18. My billing cycle begins on March 10. On March 22, I got a text message saying that I had used my free 5GB of international travel and I was being throttled until April 10, when my new cycle starts. I was pretty appalled to say the least as I've never run out of data that quickly and was using wifi as much as possible. And I doubt I used much data before I left, as I was mostly at home (with wifi) planning my trip. So I wound up ordering a 15GB international pass that was good for 30 days beginning on March 22 and cost me $50.

The 15Gb plan worked great, although I was pretty annoyed that I had to buy it. Then on the 30th day, I got a message saying that it had expired, and I would be able to "enjoy" my int'l benefits with unlimited data up to 256Kbps. So no more 5GB data even though my cycle had restarted again. So because I was Oxford and needed data to get around and get back to Heathrow, I bought a 1 day pass for $5 with up to 512MB of data. That lasted me till I got to Heathrow.

I plan on heading into the T-Mobile store this week to find out more about this, but I'm really not sure what went on with this. And I'm still confused as to how I could have used up all my data in the int'l pass from March 19 (when I arrived in London) and March 22, when I got the text. When I went to my account usage, I had used .64GB before I left. And T-Mobile counts the int'l pass data separately. But suddenly they are saying I used 5GB of data in 4 days? It's bizarre.

Last year I was in Scotland and used data a lot but my international pass lasted from the day I got there (on May 3rd) and continued until May 23, about 2 days before I left. So why should England be so different?

I returned from England about 10 days ago after almost 7 weeks.London a total of almost 2 weeks and the rest mostly in Cornwall, Devon,some Dorset ,and Bristol .
I used TMoble on a Samsung 24 Ultra.

Mostly I was ok,except some connection issues in rural areas. I did notice on occasion that EE was the network. When that was the case I had some problems with very slow speeds. Towards the end there seemed to be more issues on and off in general and then with Google Maps. I never went over my 512 data allowance. When it was working which was most of the time it was fast enough. It sounds like something is going on here.

From now on, when in the UK, I'll probably go with an Airalo esim rather than pay more money to T-mobile.

I always advocate for visitors to seek out UK domestic SIMs and eSIMs as opposed to US / Canadian providers or Airalo.

For people like you Frank II and Mardee that spend quite a lot of time in the UK, and are comfortable with UK retail, you're going to get the best deal that way.

Last time we looked on here, there was a month of unlimited data as low as £10 ($12.55 USD). Lyca, Lebara and Smarty are the super low cost providers, GiffGaff is respected mid-range and there's the actual network carriers, 3, Vodafone and EE. I think going into the High Street store of one of the network carriers and negotiating a deal to your satisfaction is a good way for the less experienced visitor to do it, plus you can have someone set your phone up for you.

Edit: There's a month of unlimited 5G data for £9 now - https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/

I need to keep my sim card so I would probably get an esim.

I'm in country #3 of a 10/12 country trip. (And all in two weeks!!!! Just kidding.)

If T-Mobile data speeds are good in all of those countries, then I'll know the UK is the exception and I'll get a UK esim.

I'm thinking an eSIM will be on the horizon for the next trip in England. I don't need a SIM as I rarely make calls, and if I call home, it's via WhatsApp or Facetime audio. As mentioned above, though, I did not have that problem in Scotland so I'm not sure why England is standing alone here.

But good to know I'm not the only one with problems. Frank, I hope you keep us posted as I would be curious to know if it's just the UK. And Gerry, thanks for the research and links!

Depends on what Tmobile plan you have. My wife and I switched to Tmobile for the international roaming. We have the Magenta 55+ plan which gives us 5 gb. of highspeed data in: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. In the other 204 countries we have unlimited calls and text, but only 128 kbps speeds. For my wife, we spent the $50 for 30 days of high speed data for our trip last week to Ireland. Worked great for her. I actually used the included 128 kbps speeds okay, as I did most of my web surfing on wifi in hotels and in all the busses we took. Big factor for me was I used Organic Maps (Android) for my map program. Worked great, needs no internet once you download that country's map data one time. So no "Google Maps" for me. I found that at the lower speed data, I could still text photos like normal, do email, and see my home surveillance video feeds..

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think if I select "Wifi Calling", and select "Prefer Cell Data", and then make phone calls, I'd use up a lot of cellphone plan data.

We took the Rick Steves 7 day Best of Ireland tour last week (it was great), and wherever we went, we had good cellphone signals. Maybe a very weak signal would give even slower speeds than 128 kbps.

Edit: I should have mentioned, my normal phone (Galaxy S10) and my backup phone (S9 International model) both do not have 5G capability. So maybe Frank II's problem was a very weak 5G signal that his phone insisted on using, rather than a strong 4G/LTE signal from another carrier. I wish I knew how phones choose which towers to roam to. I suspect they would much prefer to use their own towers, rather than the strongest signal.

Interestingly, Mardee, I had the problem in eastern Scotland last fall.

I'll let you know how the signal worked in each country when the trip is over in early July.

So far, Austria (Vienna) and Poland (Krakow) are okay.

This trip will take me through the Baltic countries and then up and down Scandinavia.

So maybe Frank II's problem was a very weak 5G signal

Could be. 5G coverage is very good in London, possibly less so in other places. Mardee's phone certainly hammered through 64GB [edit: ? a substantial amount of data anyway] very quickly in the early part of her trip, probably at very high data rates. Vodafone is pretty much flawless in London, many corporates and government departments have their phones on Vodafone. My speculation about T-Mobile and the EE network is just speculation. It's all quite inconclusive.

I can tell that even all over London I couldn't get 5G service from my T-Mobile account. I believe it's as they say....they only have 5G service from EE and EE may not be thrilled with this.

My service everywhere else--as in outside the UK--is fine.

Based on independent assessment, for 5G nationwide EE is ahead on coverage but 3 is ahead on speed (both top and average). The latter arises from the different mixture of bands the networks have deployed. However, when it comes to roaming there are many contractual factors in play.

EE for example still has a legacy 2G service and that is what might actually be what is being connected to whatever the phone display might be saying.

"However, when it comes to roaming there are many contractual factors in play."
Good statement Marco! My primary phone has a "real" T-Mobile account. From my house, in the US, I can select manual cell tower selection, and see 4 different networks. I can register to 3 of them. I also had a spare phone with a Tello account (low cost $6/month, uses T-Mobile). With that phone, I can see the same 4 networks, but I can only register with the T-Mobile one. And then, who knows what an MVNO will choose when there are 4G/LTE and 5G towers... And as was mentioned, there are 2 kinds of 5G signals...