T-Mobile Home Internet Frequently Stops Working

I am positive that I am using the Wfi on my iPhone through the T-Mobile Home Internet (when I’m using the phone’s cellular signal, I get the 5G icon on the top of my phone).  
 

Thank you for telling me how to change servers. I will pick one and use it constantly from now on. 
 

Interesting that I see the servers changing from moment to moment and are not always available for testing!

Really it comes down to you can test however you want. The Ookla Speedtest is probably the best to use. To understand how they work see their document.

https://resources.ookla.com/hubfs/Ookla%20Speedtest%20Methodology%202020.pdf

So correct me if I am wrong but it appears you are running your testing with your iPhone 12 Pro Max. Are you sure your speed test is across the wireless LAN out the gateway or is it across the phone’s cellular signal? If you want to have a solid test out the home internet gateway be sure that is the path the traffic is taking. If you have a MacBook run the Speedtest.net application from a wireless client or run the speedtest.net “test”  via a web browser on the client. If you launch speedtest.net in a browser you can enable the advanced reporting. 

If you want to get more predictable results it does help to use the same server. With speedtest.net you can use the “change server” option and then select the 3 vertical dots to get the options and select “Favorite this server”. Sure you can just use whatever but results may not be very predictable. When you run a test dont run just one run several tests a few minutes apart to get an average. The results are not just about the speed. Look at the Ping millisecond response, the amount of Jitter and loss. Watch download latency and upload latency with different servers. There are several metrics to consider with the speed testing.

This seems counter intuitive. 
 

I’m paying T-Mobile for their best service.  Why would they connect me to something sub-par?  Besides, I don’t see an option In Speedtest that lets me choose tower or server. 

Speedtest.net does not run the testing agains the tower equipment. It establishes a connection to a server that can be in different cities. I live in east TN and I run speed tests against the server equipment in Charlotte, NC as that often provides the best results and when testing I select that target even though it is not offered as the “best” source. I can see a Nashville server selected as the best source but get worse results than going to the out of state server. If I go to one in KY it is usually providing poorer results than the server I find useful as a reference server. I use a reference server. You don’t have to but the capabilities of random sources for the tests can be quite different. The routing path to the Charlotte server and the capabilities of the Charlotte location is consistent. I am looking to establish a baseline to have a consistent profile. If you jump about from one server to another it is a crap shoot and you get very different results as there are different variables. Sure the amount of traffic across the backbone routers also comes into play but I still find testing agains a reference source is more realistic as I have results over time and more predictable results. 

I’m not sure why I should be speed testing against the same server?  This is the current Tower that my T-Mobile router connected to. The speed test results are what I am experiencing right now.  The speed is very disappointing based on the price I am paying. 

PeterC,

Be sure to watch the server you are testing against and make a conscious decision to use the same reference source. If you allow the “best” selection it may not provide a good reference for profiling the operation. The target server and equipment in one location vs another can be very different with respect to their capability. 

Beyond just speed testing look at the cellular metrics. If you have the Arcadyan gateway you may have to use the mobile application to get a better idea of the cellular signal strength and quality. You can also use the command: http://192.168.12.1/TMI/v1/gateway?get=all This will give you a bit of information about the operation of the Arcadyan gateway for cellular signaling.

In addition to Speedtest.net you can also use fast.com and compare results between the two. 

Really, really Slow today. 
 

Another day, another slow internet 

Seems to be feast or family with T-Mobile - woke up this morning to no internet!