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

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.

I am on my 3rd warranty replacement gateway in less than a year.  The problem remains unresolved…  intermittent internet service and the gateway keeps rebooting a couple times per hour.  The unit is plugged into a dedicated outlet and its been located multiple places in front of windows and away from other electronics.   

As a person that works from home, this is extremely frustrating and I cant seem to get the problem resolved.  EVERY technician promises me this problem wont happen again, but here I am trying to complete a review before I lose internet service.  This gateway just isn't working and I’m hopeful that the new gateway release will help.  If not, I will be looking for other providers. 

Every couple days to, at most, a week, sometimes in the middle of an important Ooma VOIP call, our Nokia gateway stops working. I have the gateway installed on an upper floor near a window, where I get 2 or 3 bars according to the mobile app. The speeds are usually in the 300 to 500 Mbps range for downloads and 10 to 30 Mbps range for uploads, though it seems to be about 1/10th that at night during TV prime time. The gateway is connected to Ethernet and then to a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 router running DD-WRT firmware.

When it works, it works great. The problem is when it stops working and I have to reboot the gateway, at which point the internet comes back up in a minute or two. I called T-Mobile’s tech support after the first instance, where it happened three times within 24 hours, and the agent claimed that it was a temporary problem caused by work being done to the equipment in our area and it should not recur, which, of course, it has. One thing the agent told me that I found interesting is that they have a new gateway, which she implied is not made by Nokia, and that they will be shipping it out to existing customers early next year once it completes testing. Evidently, they’ve had a lot of issues with the Nokia device.

For me, the lock-ups are a showstopper due to my wife’s unhappiness and the fact that when it happens it disables security and other IOT devices in the house and the only way to restore them is to physically reboot the gateway, which can’t be done easily if one is away from home.

As much as I disliked Spectrum (which T-Mobile replaces due to their better monthly pricing of $50 vs. $74.95), I will probably end up back with them since their service was very reliable. The good news is that, as a “new” customer, I’ll get 400 Mbps service (double my previous speed) for $29.95/month for 24 months, which hopefully will give T-Mobile time to work out their bugs and for our local fiber provider ($50 for 500 Mbps) to get from the poles that cross our lawn to the underground utilities we have in our neighborhood. If not, I’ll have to play the switching game once again.

I have the same issue.  Mine will stop working 3-5 times a day requiring a reboot but a few times a week it will automatically reset itself after 5-10 min.  It always works if I reboot and wait the 2 min for it to come back up.  I can't use it for anything reliably.  It has been weeks since I have been able to watch a tv show without having to reset it once or more.  It's really gotten bad to the point I am better off with my only other option which is a 3mb DSL line.  I wish there was an easy fix.  I have added a fan to keep it cool and turned the wifi to its lowest power settings.  I would really love to keep the service.

YES.  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

After a call into The Philippines -:)

I was issued a new router Modem.

The previous gray can only gave me two bars this one has three or four . I still have it connected to the keep connect to reboot automatically if it goes out  / had one reboot a few minutes after I did it but have not had one for 24 hours will report back in a few days

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.

I have tried everything on all three different threads I have the latest gray can.

you can call customer service all you want and talk to people in the Philippines they give the same answers say they’ll call back they don’t you’re wasting your time with that anyways

I have split the unit to produce 2.4 and 5 GHz putting cameras on the 2.4 televisions phones on the 5 GHz even cut down my nest cameras to off to see if that would make a difference for band with nothing works with this new can in my location towers are all complete

This small device is the only thing that’s made my life happy when it comes to T-Mobile home 5G Internet

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.

When you received your replacement gateways, did each include a new power supply?

There were past comments where a replacement gateway came without a power supply, and the user was supposed to use the original power supply instead.  Later comments mentioned that the power supply itself was defective, apparently not putting out the proper power and causing the gateway to constantly reboot.

There have been rumors of a new gateway, and I’m glad you mentioned that to confirm it and when it might be out.

On the topic of disconnection, I had them about every other day, at least, for over two months and then after the 1609 firmware update, they just stopped completely. I’ve read a lot of comments, and I’ve never read of ANYONE with the disconnection problem who called up, and then something the rep said or did fixed it. It’s just a component of connection quality and maybe if the new gateway has better antennas, that will improve connection quality. The drastic speed drop during high-traffic hours happens to some unlucky people though, and it kind of mystifies me because one of the features of 5G is supposed to be its ability to handle exponentially more bandwidth per tower than 4G. My high-traffic speed drop is not that significant, from 300 to maybe 150, but only for hours between about 3:30PM to 5PM.

Your 2 years of a fast, stable connection with Spectrum at $30/month means that for two years you have a good alternative, and you’ll be able to follow comments of people on how the new gateway is in regard to speed consistency and dropped connections, and in general how T Mobile home internet does as it goes from the present 350,000 customers to millions.  It could get worse, who knows.

First check the model of TMobile tower. My old one is Arcadyan kvd21 which works reliably. Two weeks ago I got Sagemcom Fast 6888w for my HOA and nightmare begin. It keeps powering up by itself. Went back to TMobile store to exchange for a new one which is as Sagemcom Fast 6888w. Unfortunately it has exactly same problem. At least 6 calls with T-Mobile tech support trying various things without solving the problem.

Finally I checked other stores and finally find the old model Arcadyan kvd21. It works !!!

The newer Sagemcom Fast 6888w is faster but signal is not stable (suspect it lower transmitter power dynamically for some reason, maybe prevent overheat?) works when traffic is light but keeps on rebooting by itself when testing with YouTube video continuously.

The sales guy in TMobile store told me that there are several others have same issue with Sagemcom Fast 6888w.

So ask for older Arcadyan kvd21 if your tower rebooting by itself often.

I just cancelled my service today after 9 months. Service is not ready for wider usage yet. There are many factors which effect the final outcome. Weak signal , load on tower, N41 vs N71 tower type. There are few lucky one who gets 400+Mbps but others get 25-10 Mbps. Total $50 for 10 Mbps is not a good deal.

I don’t need much speed but for $50 it should be minimum 100 MBPS or if someone getting lower speed (because t-mobile towers are busy), then it should be lower monthly fee.