Last might I had a very important video stream I had to be on, the call of a lifetime. I am on magenta max, with unlimited premium data, no deprioritization. My phone shows 5G UC with 4/5 signal bars, yet embarrassingly, my network could not handle the stream. When I do a speed test, half the time it won't connect, when it does the jitter is extremely high, meaning the ping is going up and down wildly second by second, the download speed is anywhere between 20Mbps-140Mbps, but the upload speed is almost non existent. It's anywhere between 0.0-1.0 mbps, .2, .04, .02 etc.
How embarrassing, we have to cancel the entitr event, and why? Because I'm on the T-Mobil network. The network at my home is ALWAYS congested during peek hours, but it's usually not quite this bad. The only thing I can think is that they have been giving away so many cheap $100 phones on the metro network.
Yes, I've heard the trick and yeah sometimes when the network slows down I can switch to the 4g lte and get a momentary return to connectivity. After about 10 minutes this usually slows down too and I can switch back and forth from 5g to 4g, sometimes it helps, sometimes not much.
If I was on a cut rate carrier and paying $25 or $40 a month, it wouldn't be a big deal, but I'm not. You expect to get what you pay for, right? Even though I'm supposed to have network priority over those who pay $30-$50 a month because I'm paying double, it seems there are just so many of them it doesn't matter. I used to be on the Meteo network and yeah, after 35gb you get deprioritized, it sucked but it was expected.
Also, Im sure they would not admit to it but they also at times block certain online gaming servers. It won't connect, but when you flip on the VPN, it works no problem. Except using the VPN as a middle man makes the already mediocre speed just a but worse. I've seen them tell other users that it's a software glitch that will be fixed with the next update....nah. I get it, their network is congested and they are trying to open up capacity while inconveniencing the smallest number of users. This is more of an irritant than major issue.
The network being so congested its unusable is a big deal. Now they say they are ramping up 5g mid band to more areas. Seems like they just care about getting everybody "covered" not that their network performs to expectations.
Of course I've gone through tech support where they *reset* your connection. It works better for a couple hours, i think they are just temporarily giving you super prioritization on the network so you come absolutely first for a short time.
Is there something I'm missing here? Is there nothing to do aside from seeing if another carrier's network is better in my area?
