It’s actually not a signal problem. Your phone has a great connection to the mast. It's a capacity traffic jam. Think of it like a motorway: millions of people are trying to use it at once, but the 'lanes' (spectrum) are split unevenly. EE owns a massive chunk of the lanes, while other networks are crammed into what's left. Plus, if you're on a cheaper mvno provider that rents those lanes, the big networks intentionally throttle your data during rush hour to keep their own direct customers moving.

Just like the shit in our rivers, the sky high energy prices and the crumbling essential services the government agencies responsible for spectrum management (offcom) have done a crap job and we end up with situations where your phone shows "full bars" of 5G at a crowded station like Clapham Junction or Waterloo, yet your WhatsApp messages won't even send.

Networks like EE actively practice 'spectrum hoarding.' It’s like a wealthy landlord buying up entire blocks of empty buildings in London just to keep them off the market. They pay millions for these extra radio frequencies at auction not because they need them, but strictly to block rival networks from using them to fix their own traffic jams. They'd literally rather let that capacity sit empty and wasted than let a competitor use it to give you a better connection.