Home Internet Gateway Needs Reboot Multiple Times Daily, Internet Access Dropping

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. 

Whiskcat wrote:

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.

 

Thank you for sharing all those possible solutions you explored, even if none of them worked it is good to know. You really did it all.

I get disconnected every few days which is more frequent than I got on DSL, but since I live in a rural area where the power will sometimes make the lights flicker, I kind of assumed that perhaps the gateway is more sensitive to short power disruptions than my DSL modem was.

On the bright side, in the three months that I’ve had this, each time I have gotten disconnected, turning the gateway on and off has brought my connection back after the two minute wait, so there has not been one time when I have been without internet service for longer than the time needed to reboot the gateway.

On DSL, if my connection was lost, more often than not, getting disconnected meant anywhere from 10 minutes to three hours or more with no internet. Even though that happened maybe once every six months, I hated when it happened. Until recently, I had no 4G cell phone tethering I could do to get around having no Internet.

In advance of getting this service, I read of many people with this disconnection problem, but I was kind of surprised that when it happened to me, that I don’t mind resetting the gateway. That said, I understand how having any disruptions in service, even if only once a week, for a lot of people would make it unusable, like if they have security systems or even do a lot of critical work-related Zooming/Skyping.

It all depends on what you have available in your area in the way of other services, what you absolutely need in service reliability and speed, and what you want to spend. For me, especially with the unexplained speed boost I’ve had for the last week (download on average 50Mbps faster than I’ve gotten up until now and still on the same n41 signal) with a peak speed of 274 instead of 190, I don’t have any serious decision to make over going back to my single-digit DSL speeds or trying $100/month Star Link. Unless things change, Tmobile is a vast improvement at my house.

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.

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.

You may be dealing with an overheating modem.

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.