Forum Discussion
Home Internet Gateway Needs Reboot Multiple Times Daily, Internet Access Dropping
Multiple times on most days, at no particular time of day, internet access stops working. Devices can still connect to the WiFi network, but there is no internet access on WiFi or wired until the device gets turned off and back on. In rare cases it might work itself out within a matter of hours, for example if I am not home to reboot it. It has been like this the entire time I’ve had it, and it causes parts of my security system not to work, as well as stops my crypto mining that my PC does when I’m not using it, therefore actively costing me money when I’m not home to babysit the gateway (eg, at work).
I really, really want to stick with T-Mo but I’ll have to sign up with the local cable monopoly if uptime is this bad.
- WhiskcatNewbie Caller
I have the same issue as Tiger. Sometimes once a day, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes once every few days and about the longest it has gone is about a week, I will have to restart the modem to get it working again. Randomly out of nowhere, the internet drops. All my devices are connected but will say "Connected but without internet", the only way to fix it is to restart and sometimes it will fix itself over a long time.
I have tried the following things to no avail:
-Disconnecting all wireless devices except the pc computer (connected to LAN) and Apple laptop (wireless)
-Putting a cooling fan on either the top or bottom of unit.
-put modem on a ups backup to eliminate possibility of voltage spikes
-Replaced the tmobile modem with a new one. Replaced the sim card. Replaced ethernet cables.
Afrer doing all of these., still having the issue.. I still have a few more tests to narrow down what it could be.
- Joliver89Newbie Caller
The T-Mobile Home Internet is completely DISASTROUS. The internet drops like 5 to 6 times a day. My partner and I both work from home and this is starting to get really annoying. And when the internet is down, I also can’t even use my hotspot. At this point, we are definitely looking into quitting the service. We’re on our 3rd modem tower from them and the issues keep coming back. This has been an ongoing issue for at least the last 3 months. No one is able to help, We’re both in IT so you can easily assume we have tried EVERY troubleshooting method. We’re switching back to SPECTRUM. I don’t want to support their services but at least they’re better by far in the reliability of their service.
- TJPetersRoaming Rookie
I am on my 3rd warranty replacement gateway in less than a year. The problem remains unresolved… intermittent internet service and the gateway keeps rebooting a couple times per hour. The unit is plugged into a dedicated outlet and its been located multiple places in front of windows and away from other electronics.
As a person that works from home, this is extremely frustrating and I cant seem to get the problem resolved. EVERY technician promises me this problem wont happen again, but here I am trying to complete a review before I lose internet service. This gateway just isn't working and I’m hopeful that the new gateway release will help. If not, I will be looking for other providers.
- alertTransmission Trainee
Same. It’s happening every 10-15 minutes now, after their “remote fix”
- jlillardConnection Cadet
You may be dealing with an overheating modem.
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/home-internet-overheating-36560 - TimswLTE Learner
Shinbone wrote:
Mine will connect at 2 bars in the morning which allows limited use and then kick up to 5 bars in the afternoon. the morning speed is around 8-12mbs and afternoon runs upwards of 80-100. At 8-12 my computer won’t work and I use Roku, some apps work and some don’t. I’ve had it on all sides of my house, inside and out, even took it up on the roof without any improvement in signal. I would really like to keep it but 2 bars in the morning is unacceptable. Only been using it for 3 days so I’ll give it a few more to see if it settles in otherwise I’m stuck with Comcast.
The 4G (on my 4G phone) at my house is like that, but even worse with the varying signal strength. Fortunately, the 5G gateway is much more stable and I have gotten speeds up to 190 on 2 bars of signal strength, so speed isn’t always a correlate of signal strength, although it usually is.One guy responded to a comment of mine. He was a mile from the tower with good sight lines, sometimes had a 5-bar signal strength, but still got speeds of 10Mbps download, or less, and a terrible connection.
If I were you, I would keep the gateway in the location where you sometimes get 5 bars, but experiment with rotating it a few inches either way. And also do speed tests in various locations/orientations you try, rather than just going by the signal strength on the top, and before each speed test at a new location/orientation, reset the gateway by pressing the button off and on. What I’m suggesting is that you may find a 2-bar location that is much faster than another 2-bar location.
How are your speeds in the very early morning hours, say 1am to 5am? Across the board, this is when people usually get the fastest speeds. I’ve read a lot of these comments in the last few months and yours is the first time I’ve read of anyone who has that big a signal strength fluctuation, 2 bars in the morning to 5 bars in the afternoon, depending on time of day. That is really weird.
My best gateway location is in a window facing the closest T-mobile tower, which is 5 miles away. But I get the highest speeds by rotating the gateway from the signal strength on the top from three to two. 5G is actually a non-standalone paired 4G/5G signal and my speeds are best with 2 bars on the 4G Primary and 3 bars on the 5G Secondary. That stuff you can find in the GUI. It doesn’t show in the app or on top of the gateway.
- okboomerRoaming Rookie
Every couple days to, at most, a week, sometimes in the middle of an important Ooma VOIP call, our Nokia gateway stops working. I have the gateway installed on an upper floor near a window, where I get 2 or 3 bars according to the mobile app. The speeds are usually in the 300 to 500 Mbps range for downloads and 10 to 30 Mbps range for uploads, though it seems to be about 1/10th that at night during TV prime time. The gateway is connected to Ethernet and then to a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 router running DD-WRT firmware.
When it works, it works great. The problem is when it stops working and I have to reboot the gateway, at which point the internet comes back up in a minute or two. I called T-Mobile’s tech support after the first instance, where it happened three times within 24 hours, and the agent claimed that it was a temporary problem caused by work being done to the equipment in our area and it should not recur, which, of course, it has. One thing the agent told me that I found interesting is that they have a new gateway, which she implied is not made by Nokia, and that they will be shipping it out to existing customers early next year once it completes testing. Evidently, they’ve had a lot of issues with the Nokia device.
For me, the lock-ups are a showstopper due to my wife’s unhappiness and the fact that when it happens it disables security and other IOT devices in the house and the only way to restore them is to physically reboot the gateway, which can’t be done easily if one is away from home.
As much as I disliked Spectrum (which T-Mobile replaces due to their better monthly pricing of $50 vs. $74.95), I will probably end up back with them since their service was very reliable. The good news is that, as a “new” customer, I’ll get 400 Mbps service (double my previous speed) for $29.95/month for 24 months, which hopefully will give T-Mobile time to work out their bugs and for our local fiber provider ($50 for 500 Mbps) to get from the poles that cross our lawn to the underground utilities we have in our neighborhood. If not, I’ll have to play the switching game once again.
- okboomerRoaming Rookie
I have the 1609 firmware. Many of the times where I’ve had the issue, my connection quality was three bars, and even with two bars, I still often get 500 Mbps download speeds. Also the disconnections have happened at all times of the day and night. In every single case, rebooting the gateway immediately fixes the problem. I thought about building a device that briefly cycles power to an outlet when it can’t reach a certain URL, then waits three or four minutes before it checks again, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the investment in time and it would not completely solve the problems caused by a dropped internet connection.
- kapcycleNewbie Caller
I started using TM 5G home internet a few weeks ago.
Speeds anywhere between 80Mbps and 520Mbs down.
First day I had to restart once.
Since then it has been having to reset 3 times one day and then had it go 3 days between resets.
Same thing, speed trails off to nothing. App shows 3 bars on primary and 3-4 on secondary. App shows connected to internet but all devices show no/limited internet. Actually a couple minutes ago it actually recovered by itself for a change while I was typing this.
I added a USB fan under it since I saw temps of 150F using IR temperature reading which might be a little err high. Temperature is down now but connection still dies occasionally.
You definitely notice the stall if you are at home streaming or sitting at PC but I don’t know if it recovers by itself when I’m not in front of a screen.
I have one tower about 3200ft from me and another 5100ft from me. It looks like it reliably connects to the one 3200ft away. Sometimes when I restart it is bouncing between a couple of the cells on the nearest tower (Can see on the CID and CGI change.)
Hard to say if they are servicing one or more cells occasionally and the gateway isn’t handling the switch in cells elegantly. It does sort of remind me of the old days where your phone would sort of get lost on tower switches.Hopefully they will have a new gateway coming that is more robust. I haven’t called them yet because I’ve seen posts where people have swapped the gateway out and ended up at the same place.
- ShortwaveNewbie Caller
I have the same issue. Mine will stop working 3-5 times a day requiring a reboot but a few times a week it will automatically reset itself after 5-10 min. It always works if I reboot and wait the 2 min for it to come back up. I can't use it for anything reliably. It has been weeks since I have been able to watch a tv show without having to reset it once or more. It's really gotten bad to the point I am better off with my only other option which is a 3mb DSL line. I wish there was an easy fix. I have added a fan to keep it cool and turned the wifi to its lowest power settings. I would really love to keep the service.
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