UPDATE: The version of iOS 12.1.2, an iPhone only update released on December 17 fixed this issue!
EE iPhones not connecting to London Underground WiFi – and the fix.
It has been a frustrating month for many EE customers who found themselves unable to access the London Underground Wifi service, and for some of those customers the frustration grew as they tried to work with the EE Customer support to find a solution.
@EE I am unable to get WiFi working on the London underground. When entering the details and password from 9527 I get a message to ‘contact customer service’ this is the fourth time I have tried now.
Please assist as this is important enough to make me switch.— Abz Hussain (@4bzhussain) November 16, 2018
@EE Since moving to an eSim, I can no longer connect to WiFi on the London Underground. I know it uses EAP-Sim for authentication, so I assume it’s a limitation of an eSim? I’ve tried resetting the service too but login details don’t work either.
— Jay Hancock (@JayHanco_) November 14, 2018
Hi Tim. I would love to help you get your WiFi London Underground working and I appreciate how this can be frustrating. I would recommend for you to contact our tech chat team and they would be able to look into this further. 1/2 -Suzie
— EE (@EE) November 13, 2018
Thanks for popping me over a tweet regarding the London Underground WiFi on your iPhone XS Mike, I’d like to help. Can you let me know a little more info around what’s happening? – Mark J
— EE (@EE) November 7, 2018
Working together?
But despite the enthusiastic reaching out by support, customers all seemed to be trapped on the merry-go-round of pleasant suggestions for fixes.
My own experience began with a promising phone call to EE who initially said the number I had brought with me from Three hadn’t been ported correctly, and that they could fix this, and I should be up and running within 24 hours. After this didn’t resolve the issue, I have been through a series of “fixes” including “network refreshes” “password resets”, calls to update me on the issue, right up to a request for me to reinstall the iOS. After many hours with no success, the Level Two technical support team eventually admitted defeat and suggested I wait until there was a software update from Apple in December which might resolve the issue. Case closed.
During that final call, I flagged a message on their Community Forums with the technician, from a user who suggested the problem was caused by either a missing Carrier Config Profile or that the Carrier Profile was being ignored by the iPhone. The technician immediately stated that the fix suggested was not approved by EE, and that really was the end of it as far as EE was concerned. The call ended and I immediately received a text:
The fix!
Let’s start with a disclaimer. This works for me. I take responsibility for my device. I offer no promise or guarantee that this will work for anyone else. Kudos and thanks to johnno_uk for the solution. My device is an iPhone XS Max on EE running iOS 12.1 (As of 17/11/18).
You’ll need a Mac running 10.14 or later
- Download Apple Configurator 2 from the Mac App Store
- Open Apple Configurator 2 and choose “New Profile” from the menu
- Select “Wifi” from the options on the left hand-side of the window and then click “configure”
- Type “EE WiFi-Auto” into the Service Set Identifier field
- Select Auto-Join
- Select WPA/WPA2 Enterprise for Security Type
- Choose “Save ” from the File menu. Call it EE WiFi-Auto
- Chose File>Share>AirDrop and send to your iPhone
- Select to install on your iPhone and enter any passcodes required
- Restart your iPhone
As we pulled into Canning Town DLR station, my iPhone auto-joined the WiFi without any requirement to enter passwords or mobile number.
Case closed!