way to see if my tower near me is 5G

tmo_mike_c wrote:

Our coverage map will show you where 5G is in your area. To get a better view, search a specific address for more accurate picture of the type of coverage you’ll get.

Your coverage map is wrong.. No one I know here can coonect with the t-mobile service and get 5G , no one..

tmo_mike_c wrote:

Our coverage map will show you where 5G is in your area. To get a better view, search a specific address for more accurate picture of the type of coverage you’ll get.

Not even close. Coverage map says 5G Ultra available in my area. Can only manage 1.48mbs with 2 bars on your gateway.

Yea I second the recommendation for cellmapper.net. The official T-Mobile coverage map isn’t even remotely accurate when it comes to 5G service. In fact, it’s about as close to flat out lying as they could possibly get. My trash can has NEVER gotten a 5G signal, even though their coverage map says there’s 5G coverage all over my area.

Could try looking things up on cellmapper.net.

With my whitebox and the TMO internet app on my phone, I was able to match band and cell ID against the connection metrics in the app to locate my towers.

YMMV though, as it depends on people reporting their phone's connection metrics in your area.

Before I got the T mobile home internet 5G gateway 5 days ago, about three weeks ago I had looked at coverage maps which showed my rural neighborhood had 5G coverage, but when I put in my address, I got “not available at your location.”

So I waited, and then the price dropped to $50 and incredibly, I tried for yet another time on the availability screen and it was available in my location this time, and I happily signed up. And it has been phenomenal, with the minimum of a 10x speed increase on both download and upload, and only $5 more than I was paying for DSL, good ping and no lag. I get a steady 3 bar signal, whereas my 4G phone often fluctuates to 1 bar.

However, if you have either a 5G phone, or you have the T mobile Home internet 5G gateway, the way to tell if you have 5G at the tower is by checking the Web Gateway User Interface (GUI) online at 192.168.12.1 (for the gateway anyway, not sure about the phone) and if it shows that you have both a Primary and Secondary signal, your tower has 5G and you are receiving it.

Maybe it’s just me, or I’m missing something, but the app does not show my secondary signal, even when I have it according the to GUI. So people relying on the app for more detailed data are missing out on a lot by not using the GUI.

Here is an explanation of the role of 4G (Primary signal) in relation to today’s 5G from wiki’s writeup on 5G: “The new 5G wireless devices also have 4G LTE capability, as the new networks use 4G for initially establishing the connection with the cell, as well as in locations where 5G access is not available” 

The “cell” being referred to there is of course the coverage area surrounding a transceiver and antennas on the tower.

the coverage map does not show where the towers are. I have a cell booster with a yagi antenna which needs to point to the tower. I need something that shows where the towers are. 

tmo_mike_c wrote:

Our coverage map will show you where 5G is in your area. To get a better view, search a specific address for more accurate picture of the type of coverage you’ll get.

That just isn’t true. Placement of antennas on the cell tower affect signal as well as hills mountains and buildings. We had an ice storm in 2020 that shifted or damaged tower antennas and our service was virtually non existent. It took almost 3 months before someone sent a tech out to the field to fix the problem. I called several times, created multiple tickets but was never able to speak to a US representative or the regional manager. I was never compensated for that failure either. I live well away from any city. My Sprint signal is great but the Verizon signal, from the same tower, sucks. The coverage map show we would have a great 5G from T-mobile. The reality is the nearest 5G upgraded tower is far away and the nearest tower isn’t scheduled for upgrade until March…maybe. The store tech said go ahead and switch but if it doesn’t work they can’t switch it back which means I’d have zero service. The truth is you can’t get credible information from any service provider, at least that’s been my experience over the years.

Using Cellmapper.net and the CGI information from your phone (or, in my case) the T-Mobile Home Internet app, you should be able to find the T-Mobile tower that you’re connected to.  But keep in mind that the Cellmapper app is not necessarily up to date.  Along the lines of your complaint, I recently observed a pleasant increase in my download/upload speed.  Investigation found that T-Mobile had evidently placed a 5G installation about 2 miles from my location and speeds were wonderful (this location did not show up on Cellmapper but I found the installation via RF direction finding equipment that I have). All was great for about a couple of weeks, but now the 5G signal is gone and the previous throughput from the LTE tower that I was connected to for a year went from an average of 15Mbps to less about 2MBps.  Since I’m in a rural location, the problem is probably an oversubscription of users on the 5Mb bandwidth of the LTE link.  So, unless T-Mobile reactivates their 5G, I’ll be forced to migrate to another carrier, most likely to Starlink, where throughput speeds (so far) are much better than the regression in performance from T-Mobile.

Our coverage map will show you where 5G is in your area. To get a better view, search a specific address for more accurate picture of the type of coverage you’ll get.