Question

Tmobile Home Internet with Tmobile Cellspot

  • 21 November 2020
  • 31 replies
  • 5108 views
M
Userlevel 1
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Hey,

so two days ago I received my tmobile home internet gateway router and it works great with one issue I have not been able to overcome which is I also have the cellspot for expanding coverage in my house as there is hardly any to no signal within the house to use our phones. We have wifi calling and everything enabled and it just didn't work at all, but the cellspot worked great. The issue is the cellspot transmits a tmobile radio signal and my home internet wants to connect to the cellspot because it is the strongest signal it can pick up and obviously that wont work because the cellspot is connected to the home internet gateway router. So is there a way to blacklist or block the home gateway router from using the cellspot signal and to connect to the cell towers instead? With the cellspot off the home internet gateway router works great with awesome speeds, as soon as I plug in the cellspot I get nothing.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated 

31 replies

D

I’ll give this a try : T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot Signal Booster (New 2nd Gen) $14 on amazon. connects to weak cell tower signal and boosts it in your house. kyp! 

Did it work im having problems with my service 

 

M

The cure will only take place when TMO replaces or upgrades their antenna in neighborhoods. When I use the tool to locate signal direction and strength I see bands 2, 4, 12, 66 & 71 for my entire surrounding neighborhood, but only a sliver of a signal to our my home. The average DL speed is 6Mbps/6Mbps for my WiFi on iPhone. Terrible, because the antenna is a low height on a water tower, with tons of homes and trees blocking the signal. With the old original TMO Cell Spot V2 it does nothing unless I am in the living room where it sits. 

 

I have to use Centurylink WiFi for cell calls and I am told too frequently that I am cutting out. However when I go up on the roof, I get a much better TMO signal. So my only choice it appears is if I add an antenna to my chimney, with enough cable to run through the exterior wall up at the highest point under the eave facing TMO’s signal and then drill another hole where the Cell Spot sits. The RJ-45 Internet cable is in the WAN port, so my question is, how would I connect an exterior antenna to there TMO Cell Spot?

A

Interesting, I have the same question. I’m in one of those fringe areas that gave me minimal bars so I got the CellSpot which works fine but I was thinking about getting Home Internet and was wondering if you can set it to use 4gLTE vs 5G so it would take advantage of that cellular signal.  I reckon if I can do that, it makes the CellSpot worthless which probably isn’t that huge of an issue for me as I normally don’t lose wifi and could just use wifi calling.  But if the home internet is always trying to access 5G because it sees a weak signal then it would be worthless.  Thoughts?

Thanks,

Mark

G

I have the personal cellspot. I have my own modem and my own router. Everything works as it should.

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/public-files/images/support-non-device/4G%20LTE%20CellSpot%20Quick%20Start%20Guide.pdf 

My problem of late is a huge jump in broadband data usage. I suspect more neighbors using T mobile and accessing my cellspot. Working on solution. BTW trying to find a post I found on Google but can't find here:

T-Mobile
https://community.t-mobile.com › c...
CAUTION Rural Peeps, Cell Spot WILL eat ALL high speed data

L
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I’ll give this a try : T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot Signal Booster (New 2nd Gen) $14 on amazon. connects to weak cell tower signal and boosts it in your house. kyp! 

Let me know if it works for you, there is not much info about that device.

L
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I was told by High Level Tech person that the Personal Cellspot will not work since it’s not compatible with 5G Wireless Home Internet. My phones are having 1 to 2 bars and they said that would be enough. Not much they can do right now.

S

I’ll give this a try : T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot Signal Booster (New 2nd Gen) $14 on amazon. connects to weak cell tower signal and boosts it in your house. kyp! 

S

One easy way would be if the user could limit the 5G gateway to connect only to 5G . The cellspot is LTE so the gateway would not ry to connect to the cellspot. I know that does not solve the issue for those that can only connect the gateway to LTE but it is an easy fix for the many connecting to 5G. 

G

So, like others I spent about an hour on the phone talking to TMobile after my last post. The only thing that I got out of that is that TMobile hires absolute imbesiles for their home internet support team. To anyone with an ounce of technical understanding, you can see why having a gateway wirelessly connected to a transmitter which is hard wired to itself is not going to work. After describing the issue calmly and as elementary as I could numerous times, I was met with responses that made it clear she had no idea what was happening. (I think she thought WiFi and Internet are interchangeable/dependent terms? She couldn't understand why if I wasn't losing wifi, why I wasn't able to connect?) Very frustrating exchange. I'd say it was like explaining to a kindergartener what the issue was.but then for fun I explained it to my 5 year old after the call to see if I wasn't doing a good job and she understood first try..... Finally talked to a supervisor that was odd at best. He assured me that he would use "all the powers he holds as a supervisor" and employ "the very best Engineers in the company" to fix the problem. Thought we were getting somewhere, then right before he hung up he told me a work around would be to turn on tethering on my cellphone and connect to that. 🤨 Sooo... probably still lost then?

C
Userlevel 5
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As others have suggested, the most logical solution is for the TMO gateway/router to be able to lock into specific cell tower bands and signals thus ignoring the cell spot ones. This is a feature that benefits all TMO home internet customers since there are many more situations where the TMO gateway randomly decides to connect to other signals only to degrade performance. Unfortunately this signal/band locking feature is currently not available but we know it’s possible because older LTE hotspots had this feature.

G

I am wondering if anyone managed to solve this issue? I have the same situation as the OP. I have an external antenna which allows me to get Tmobile Home Wifi. However, the signal isn’t good enough for me to get service in my home. Using Wifi calling is a no go, evident by the fact that as soon as I get into  a service area away from my house, I generally instantly receive all the texts I was missing at home. This issue actually goes deeper for me. Occasionally my home wifi also likes to connect to my neighbor’s cellspot. My speeds suddenly drop from ~100mbps to ~8 mbps. 

etperez22
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So it it possible to have both T-Mobile Home Internet and a T-Mobile CellSpot (Femto)?

 

I would like to ditch my current ISP but still need a CellSpot to boast in-home coverage. WiFi Calling works fine, but it is not as great as being on an actual cell network. 

G
Userlevel 3
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Cellspots will not work with wireless internet. They require a wired broadband connection for the backhaul. In fact, plugging a cellspot in to a home internet gateway will cause it to malfunction. 

 

If you're looking for a signal booster or external antenna for home internet, third party equipment is your only option. 

 

F

Just got my gateway & informed the TMobile rep that I would need to plug in a cellspot & solar monitoring to the back via Ethernet ports. He told me no problem. I hooked everything up except for the two ethernet spots and the internet was great. I plugged in the cellspot and the other device everything went down and the cell spot itself wouldn't work either.

I just spoke to a tech support rep and their answer was to buy a weboost and splitter to hook everything up only to find out that a Weboost is over $500, that's out of reach for me. So now since I need the cellspot, I guess I'll continue spending double for the internet. Thanks TMobile.

K
Userlevel 1
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I am also having the same issue. The worst part is that almost 3 years ago when I set up the personal cellspot, I was told it would be a temp fix as they were upgrading the towers near me (2 miles).

Well, it appears they did not upgrade the tower.

Side note….the T-mobile map that shows an area as 5G extended…..taker it with a grain of salt. I found out from one of the reps at T-mobile that I have been working with to get this resolved that the 5G signal….and even the 4G LTE signal is only strong enough for an outdoor connection. T-mobile knows the signals are too weak to use indoors…..but they do not explain that. They just want to be able to show a pretty colored map.

As of now, T-mobile has still not provided a viable work-around to the issue. I have contacted both the cell phone and home internet division. Get the usual...”We are always upgrading towers to give users the best possible experience”  line. 

T-mobile has no clue how to handle the issues they have…..seems like there were some huge holes in their beta testing.

C

"So why can the Home Internet Gateway connect to a Tower, but your phones need a cell spot instead of directly connecting to a Tower"

So I would guess it's the same problem that I have. There's one corner of the house that gets a good signal.. so you put the TMobile router in that spot. But then the rest of the house has little to no signal.

C
Userlevel 4
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This is a MAJOR issue.  We switched to Tmobile home internet.  Get 10x the speed we got with Century Link phone line and less cost.  Great.

BUT, cellspot does not work with tmobile home internet.  Now we have great internet but can’t use our cellphones in our house.  Always had to use cellspot before with the phone line internet.  I will definitely keep the Tmobile home internet but may have to switch to a different cellphone provider….or is there a work-around-way to make cellspot work with Tmobile home internet?

So why can the Home Internet Gateway connect to a Tower, but your phones need a cell spot instead of directly connecting to a Tower.

R

This is happening to me right now! This thread has definitely eased my frustration a little bit. Not knowing what is wrong is the worst. I live in a mobile home and NEED the cellspot. I hope T-Mobile can figure this out....

M

Just a thought does T-mobile even monitor these pages?  You would think someone from the company would give advice on fixing these problems.

I think Tmobile are confused themselves on who is responsible for what, after the merge with Sprint. Their customer service USED to be on point and now its just crap. They either put you on hold or tell you they'll call back after they talk to a Tech and I'm like thinking i was already talking to a Tech. Its whatever now!

O

Just a thought does T-mobile even monitor these pages?  You would think someone from the company would give advice on fixing these problems.

O

It looks like we are all in the same boat and tech support has no idea how to fix it.  I was on the phone this morning with them and it was a no go.  Good idea but not everything was thought out.

L

This is a MAJOR issue.  We switched to Tmobile home internet.  Get 10x the speed we got with Century Link phone line and less cost.  Great.

BUT, cellspot does not work with tmobile home internet.  Now we have great internet but can’t use our cellphones in our house.  Always had to use cellspot before with the phone line internet.  I will definitely keep the Tmobile home internet but may have to switch to a different cellphone provider….or is there a work-around-way to make cellspot work with Tmobile home internet?

A

Same issue please keep updated need it fixed ASAP 

C

I am very interested in this as well, I am in the same position as the OP. Seems like this should be a fairly straight forward fix. Hard to believe it’s 2020 and we still have many areas that don’t have access to good internet.

M
Userlevel 1
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I thought the cellspot needed cable for backhaul. Mine was network cabled to the WiFi cellspot. The cellspot into the cable modem. 
 

I didn’t think the cellspot could work without the cable to take back info from the cellspot. Basically the cellspot provided a way for phones to connect to the internet and network. 
 

So in my mind it’s a snake eating it’s tail. The cellspot is putting out a signal but no info coming in or going out. The home internet gateway is receiving and sending nothing as well. 
 

Hope they get this figured out for you. 

that is correct, The cellspot needs an outside source of Data (which in my case would be the tmobile home internet gateway router) If it worked as I described in the other post it would work flawlessly. It is in fact a snake eating its tail because it wants to connect to a device connected to itself, However those 3 solutions I posted would fix that and allow both devices to work perfectly together. 

 

Again thanks for the input and I hope it gets resolved too. Honestly its a simple solution it is just whether they are willing to do it or not

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