t-monile home internet is barely providing basic data speeds sometimds.

If you’ve tried T-MOBILE support and have gotten nowhere…..

Understand first and foremost, if your signal is low, your 5G service will be poor. We engineer types call this “garbage in gets you garbage out.”

Now regarding the T-MOBILE internet equipment on the towers, it operates on what T-MOBILE calls 5G-UC, which is basically a “mid-band” frequency that carries a lot of bandwidth but is not as fast as “high band.” But frankly, for home internet mid-band is all you need. I have learned in my area that the tower equipment for HOME INTERNET is not the same as is used for mobile phone service, and that T-MOBILE does not over-subscribe the service. This means if you get good signal, you’ll get great performance.

After signal improvements I commonly get greater than the rated bandwidth for the service except during peak TV viewing time (when everyone is streaming). During peak times, I get near 90% of the rated bandwidth of 115Mbps down and 23Mbps up. This is tremendously better than the local yo-yo ISP provider in my area.

The simple solution is to get a 5G cell signal booster, is good for metro and suburban applications, but not good for rural applications. Here is a company that sells several, but you may be able to get one from T-Mobile customer service for free, see https://www.surecall.com/signal-booster/cat/home-office/?GA_network=s&GA_device=c&GA_campaign=359540784&GA_adgroup=1316116102395667&GA_target=&GA_placement=&GA_creative=&GA_extension=8177657646064&GA_keyword=surecall%20flare&GA_loc_physical_ms=73538&GA_landingpage=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surecall.com%2Fsignal-booster%2Fcat%2Fhome-office%2F&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=359540784&utm_keyword=surecall%20flare&msclkid=63d026ddde731514e44d44d7383784ef&utm_term=surecall%20flare&utm_content=Surecall%20Flare

For rural users, it gets more difficult, read on:

I live on lakefront property and had similar issues with both T-Mobile internet and digital TV reception issues. The root cause is simple; signal interference from a line of trees. Signal would get worse during spring and summer, and would improve during colder months, likely due to less tree leaves “attenuating,” aka reducing the signal quality. The solution was two fold: an antenna mast that I mounted to the back of my home that helped me realize 30 feet elevation, and 2: an outdoor antenna system for the T-Mobile device / high gain antenna for my Tivo DTV receiver. The antenna mast is heavy duty and designed for rural applications. The antenna mast was purchased from Amazon, see https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Up-Telescoping-Mast-TM-50-U-95/dp/B010GAQ3K4/ref=sxin_15_ac_d_rm?ac_md=3-2-YW50ZW5uYSB0b3dlcg%3D%3D-ac_d_rm_rm_rm&crid=1ZRVF69Y6MB43&cv_ct_cx=antenna+mast&keywords=antenna+mast&pd_rd_i=B010GAQ3K4&pd_rd_r=2f058b48-bce3-4b8a-84cd-f75aeef0bcd5&pd_rd_w=wAMTe&pd_rd_wg=L1ZHs&pf_rd_p=5fdda09e-d732-41f0-8362-9e3e115c3771&pf_rd_r=TF9FQV9FBB671GTZX44A&psc=1&qid=1644881211&sprefix=antenna+ma%2Caps%2C270&sr=1-3-12d4272d-8adb-4121-8624-135149aa9081, the antenna system for the T-Mobile device, see https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-gateway/ , and instructions from

Mind you, this is a technical video. Get someone technical to help you if it is beyond your skills. For DTV, I purchased this monster antenna and mounted it to the same antenna mast  3 feet above the 5G antenna, see : https://www.amazon.com/pingbingding-Antenna-Outdoor-Amplified-Mounting/dp/B07DGYGGSF/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=150+mile+range+tv+antenna&qid=1644881882&sr=8-15 .

In closing, I hope I have brought to this discussion some information to help those in need.

-Hank

Joshjafackl wrote:

My t-mobile internet, especially lately, has been the worst internet I have ever bought/dealt with. My wife with her iPhone 12 Pro gets medium 5g coverage most of the time at our house. Why does our home internet modem averages weak to poor signal? I’ve never gotten a better signal than weak. It is also CONSTANTLY losing connection to the internet witch is hard on my wife when she works from home full time and is constantly dropping connection to her work. I’m never getting the minimum download speed I was told I would at least be getting and streaming and or gaming is virtually impossible. Please help or I’m going to have to cancel and go back to our previous internet provider. 

Exactly what information in this post proves to provide 'The Solution' as its flagged 'Resolved'... other than to guide you through web access to the gateway data?

1012Brian wrote:

I’m curious to see your answers.  I have experienced the same over the last month.  We’ve had the home internet box for months, and it worked wonders over my old provider.  So much so, we were able to start using a streaming tv service.  But not now.  The download speed has dropped tremendously and at times it will just disconnect entirely.  Not just with the streaming service, it does it with a phone or a tablet as well.  Never did that before, and nothing has changed.  I have gone through the reset process, the unplugging and so forth, and the problem remains.  I guess that unlimited data isn’t so unlimited after all.

Just don’t know what to do about it.  

I have the same problems. Thinking about going back to Comcast.

After reading this thread it seems to me that this is all because of tower switchover and nothing to do but waiting until it's completed. Now if someone wants to explain to me when you do try to change settings on the gateway's website it asks for username and password, what would that be? Thanks for any help.

Slclemens wrote:

I’ve had essentially the same experience. T-Mobile has essentially oversold their 5G home service that went from strong in the Spring to non-functional by August. Now they just claim they are congested and have no intention of expanding their capacity to meet the demand they sold. They say speeds of less than 10, or even 1, out of the 150 they promised, are fine during normal waking hours, and if you don’t like it you can leave. Pretty sure that’s call theft and fraud. 

You are likely dealing with Wi-Fi interference if you are using the built in wifi6 router . Turn those off and get  a nice mesh system. Trust me I thought I was gonna go bonkers until I did it myself . Also these things thermal throttle with heavy use. 5g modems get 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Buy a p.c Fan with feet and a USB power plug  120mm and plug it in the back then set the modem on top . 

Remove the BATTERY as well from the bottom. Great videos out there on why you should and how. Takes 5 min and no skill but taking 4 screws out. Battery overheats> modem gets too 🔥🔥> thermal throttles>>> crappy speeds.the end.

Turn off all the broadcast SSIDs! Then buy a wifi6 home mesh network. Sad you got to spend money but the built in wifi6 modem is 🔥🔥 hot  garbage 🔥🔥🔥.

Then, flip it over and take the battery out of it, lots of great videos on tear downs on YouTube. Takes 5 min. 

Once back together, buy a cheap 120mm fan with usb-C connector  , one with feet on it  and set the modem on top and plug it in to provided USB C port.

The short of it is the modem is overheating during use , and going into thermal throttle..lots of videos showing temps with a FLIR camera proving so.

If you do that small mod, cost maybe $10 for a fan for it (should of been built with one TMO) , and it still doesn't stabilize your service then I suggest factory resetting it and again switching off all Wi-Fi broadcast SSIDs. 

Get a nice mesh WiFi 6 system like a Tp Link Deco , plug it in and your worries are done. Also, sadly Bars, don't really equal signal strength or quality. It's really a horrible indicator that's flawed on all cell devices.

If you do ALL the above, and it still doesn't get the speeds you want, then I suggest as a last resort download cellmapper , find your tower and get it in /near a window as close to the tower as possible.

Antenna placement is also 🔥 garbage 🔥 on these and many techies like to mod them with external connectors for amplified or High Gain Directional Antennas.  Again also cheap and fairly easy if you can follow directions. 

The last step is for people like me who want the most out of the network. Likely if you do all I say here, and your firmware is UTD,  and you still cannot get usable service I suggest returning it for a replacement and or refund.

The kinks will get ironed out and TMobile is great about listening to their customers and giving them what they want/need . 

I am sure they will have someone who is engineering the next modem iteration take all the above into account.be patient and I'll be here to help if you need it 

I’ve had essentially the same experience. T-Mobile has essentially oversold their 5G home service that went from strong in the Spring to non-functional by August. Now they just claim they are congested and have no intention of expanding their capacity to meet the demand they sold. They say speeds of less than 10, or even 1, out of the 150 they promised, are fine during normal waking hours, and if you don’t like it you can leave. Pretty sure that’s call theft and fraud. 

jnusz wrote:

I was getting right at 100 MBps for the 2 weeks I held on to my old ISP, the day after I dropped my other provider I’ve been getting like ~45 at best (with no movement on the router etc)

 

Here’s my connection information:

Primary Signal

PCI

248

Band

B2

EARFCN

677

Secondary Signal

PCI

625

Band

n71

NR-ARFCN

126490

 

Any thoughts?

I’ve had essentially the same experience. T-Mobile has essentially oversold their 5G home service that went from strong in the Spring to non-functional by August. Now they just claim they are congested and have no intention of expanding their capacity to meet the demand they sold. They say speeds of less than 10, or even 1, out of the 150 they promised, are fine during normal waking hours, and if you don’t like it you can leave. Pretty sure that’s call theft and fraud. 

This JUST happened to me starting Monday of this week…. I WAS connected to the T-Mobile tower (was Sprint) only 1 mile away and getting VERY high speeds then it disappears Monday….  They are converting Sprint towers over right now and I am currently connected to a tower over 10 miles away…. for the time being……. you need to run Speedtest (app on your phone) and AS it starts to run the download test and the meter arrow starts to move start to rotate your gateway and see if it starts to ‘jump’ in speed….. run it several times and do this over and over….  it has 4 antennas inside and rotation affects where it is looking outside….. also try unplugging it and while it on try moving it to different locations in your house and you need to test next to various windows each time…. there is a small display at the top of the unit and to activate it just tap on it lightly and you may have to swipe it left or right a couple of times to find the connection strength ‘bars’ ….they are very bright and may be a bit hard to see…..  at each location you can slowly rotate (like ¼ turn at a time) and see what you get…. once you think you have found a better spot plug it in and wait about a minute or so for it to come back on and after another 2 minutes let it finish up connecting and THEN redo your speed test(s) ….. If you happen to have an upstairs then by all means locate it up there…..  there ARE kits available online from a company called Waveform that well let you add an external high gain set of antennas to the unit and you can then pull in signals many miles away….. works very well by the way….. and there are videos on YouTube these days about that...

I have been fighting TMobile for a month now. I've had an example of my gateway, a 4g version sent out, multiple tickets, nobody can do anything about. It has been the most frustrating experience I've ever had. We went from 175mb down / 4mb up to barely 7-8 down, sometimes nothing. We both work from home and I have sometimes to drive away with the gateway to get to another tower so I can work. Customer service has been clueless and I have already signed up for another service. I am beyond annoyed at this point.