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Cell spot interfering with regular wi-fi

M

I received my cell spot yesterday and plugged it in the way it says to and it seems to be working great. I now have full service where I had almost none before. However, trying to run any apps on my television today seems to be near impossible. They keep coming up with the fact that they are experiencing network issues or are extremely slow and continue to pause to buffer. That is not an issue I've ever had before, so I'm wondering if the cell spot could be interfering in some way with my internet service. If anyone has any feedback on this, I would appreciate it!

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Best answer by dragon1562 3 March 2018, 23:30

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24 replies

M

magenta4287944 I hope you read this. I worked on this for another couple of hours today and was finally able to fix the issue. I did call Tmobile support and they were polite, but not able to solve the problem. I changed my Netgear router to use channel 6 instead of channel 3, then updated my router's firmware. After doing this I still had issues (was getting about 0.5 mbps down as opposed to 25+ mbps down when the CellSpot was turned off). The fix turned out to be super simple and made me feel kind of silly. I simply moved the CellSpot so it was 3 or 4 feet away from my router. I am betting they were interfering with each other because I literally had them sitting side by side when I was having the problem. I hope this helps you or someone else having the same issue.

M

Basically, if I unplug the cell spot, three internet in my house works fine. If the cell spot is plugged in, it doesn't. This was T-mobile's bandaid to a whole other issue, so at this point, I just don't want to even deal with them anymore. I'm going to send the cell spot back, deal with the fact that I have crap coverage where I live and that all my calls go directly to voicemail when I'm on Wi-Fi in my home, and when I've paid off my current phone, I'll move to a more reliable carrier! Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

M

This fixed it for me, just separated the two units and went from 1.2 to 47

D

Afternoon, I found this post because I was having  the same

problem. I moved the cell spot away from the router after noticing how close it was and now my cable and cell spot a working fine.

Try it, hope it works for you.

P

Can someone tell me how they moved the cell spot 2-5ft away from their router when it has to be connected to the router via internet? I am still in the first 2 hours of setting up my cell spot and I am supposed to start working from home and can’t even access my internet via Ethernet cable to my router to get online.

F

So grateful for this thread.  Set up my cell booster, home cell reception improved but wifi speed went to NOTHING.  Couldn’t even run a speed test.  Found this thread, moved it about 2 feet away from router (it had been right next to it) and internet speed is back to normal.

A

Hi Everyone, 

I was having the same issue. I moved the T-Mobile booster about 5 ft away and now both the Internet and my cell service work great. Hope this helps!

B

Basically, if I unplug the cell spot, three internet in my house works fine. If the cell spot is plugged in, it doesn't. This was T-mobile's bandaid to a whole other issue, so at this point, I just don't want to even deal with them anymore. I'm going to send the cell spot back, deal with the fact that I have crap coverage where I live and that all my calls go directly to voicemail when I'm on Wi-Fi in my home, and when I've paid off my current phone, I'll move to a more reliable carrier! Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

THIS!!!  I am soooo regretting my choice to leave AT&T.  I paid more, but now I now why.  My service has been TERRIBLE since day one.  I can’t get a cell in my house, so they sent me the cell spot and now my wifi is terrible.  Got a brand new phone for my daughter and she can literally NEVER get a cell.  It’s awful!

dragon1562
Userlevel 3
Badge +12

What I would suggest doing is running a speed test with the cell spot plugged in and without it plugged in and seeing if there is a difference. I would also make sure that you have enough bandwidth to support streaming on multiple devices. There is always a chance that a device on the network is doing updates like a computer as a example which would use some of your limited bandwidth and could be the cause of your issues.

The cell spot how ever is unlikely to be the culprit unless other people are useing the device to stream video and such. As things stand there are to many factors for me to peg a issue but I would start with the basic trouble shooting steps, including powering off the router for 40 secs and then turning it back on. Hope the info helped./

A

I agree. Turn the CellSpot off and see if the situation changes. I assume that what you got is a LTE CellSpot, not a TM-AC1900 WiFi CellSpot Router?

tmo_mike_c
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Badge +15

Hi there!

I see you've gotten some advice here. Can you let us know what happened after you've tested? Thanks!

tmo_marissa
Rank
Userlevel 3

Hey, hey! Just wanted to check in with you and see if you'd had a chance to walk through either of the suggestions above from our Community members! How are things going for you?

tmo_amanda
Rank
Userlevel 3

Hey, @magenta4287944​!

I just wanted to check in one last time to see if you've tried the steps that were recommended above. If so, please let us know if that solved the problem or if the problem still persists.

tmo_marissa
Rank
Userlevel 3

😥 That's definitely not the conclusion anyone was hoping for! I'm sorry to read this. Given that you already have home internet and a router, and it sounds like you're using TMO devices, was Wi-Fi calling not a solution you were able to use in lieu of the CellSpot? Or is that the other issue you're referring to?
We'd hate to see you go if we can help!

M

It wasn't the other issue, but Wi-Fi calling does not work. I get broken service still on outgoing calls and incoming calls go straight to voicemail; many times I don't even get the voicemail notification until hours later. The text messaging on Wi-Fi is also very temperamental. Overall, the service is just poor. It is what it is; you get what you pay for!

tmo_marissa
Rank
Userlevel 3

Ouch. 😕 Whereabouts are you located and what kind of device are you using? When you were working with our Tech team, did we mention that the area has known coverage issues, or whether there was any upcoming modernization or network addition planned? Did we ever get to the bottom of why Wi-Fi calling wasn't working?

M

Ontario and I'm on a Samsung Note 8. I was told when I switched I would have 4G coverage at my address. That has never happened. No one has ever been able to answer why Wi-Fi calling does not work- I've asked at the store and on a customer service call and was told both times I just needed to upgrade to a newer phone. I had upgraded less than six months before they told me that the last time, so I stopped calling. The cell spot was given by customer service as a bandage for an issue on the rebate for a buy one get one free when you add a line. I ended up having to email John Legere directly to eventually get that handled. The fact that the cell spot, which was meant to pacify me after T-mobile had screwed up the rebate process three different times over a period of for months, honestly isn't all that shocking. I was just trying to see if I could get it to work and to not knock out my basic internet in my home. It doesn't seem to be something that I'm going to be able to do, so I'll send back the device in the next week or so and proceed from there. Thanks so much for trying to help. I realize this is not your issue and I do appreciate you responding so quickly; unfortunately, it's just been a little too much inconvenience over the last few months for me to continue to feel that T-Mobile is up to the quality I expect from a service provider. Thanks again.

A

Ontario, ​Canada? ​Ontario, California? Illinois? Indiana? Iowa? Ohio? Oregon? Wisconsin?

M

My experience and pain was very similar. No reception at the house, WiFi calling did not work consistently. I finally got a CellSpot, which worked great, but caused by WiFi coverage to not work upstairs, which is where we spend most of our time. So essentially we could either have cell coverage or WiFi but not both. I wish TMobile would have told us our WiFi range would be decreased if we chose to utilize the CellSpot.

B

I'm in the same boat. I'm onoa very small dead zone and Wi calling sucks and doesn't work. Get a cellspot and it kills the wifi in spikes .nothing loads, tons of buffering. Speed tests come back fine. Unplug the cell spot and everything works again. For 100Mbts down and it still lags. Not happy .

J

I ran a series of tests using both Ookla Speed Test  and Wifi Infoview.  I ran the test in a  room on the other side of the house, separated by a brick wall,

In Wifi Infoview the quality of connection improved from mid 70s when hotspot was adjacent to router, improved to 95+ when separated by 12 feet

My speed test results dramatically improved both in ping and in in Mbps (Ping 50-75 improved to 10-13 when separated ;  bandwidth went from 2-3Mbps to consistently 20-30.  This is on a Lenovo Yoga C930 with an AC wifi antenna connecting to a Linksys 1900AC router, and my ethernet connected cable service typically running 130-150 Mbps.

Conclusive proof to me, don't put your cellspot near your router.

Or anywhere near your beds.

S

I am experiencing some very issues.  When the Cell spot is connected to my network, many of my WiFi connections drop repeatedly.  My WiFi devices are virtually unusable. 

I just got a new OnePlus 7t that has the 600mhz frequency.  This means that my device is now picking up towers it didn't before.  It doesn't want to stay connected to one but bounces back and forth causing me to lose cell service.  The same thing happens when using WiFi calling.  Hence the T-Mobile Cell Spot.

If I unplug the spot, WiFi works.  If I plug it back in, it breaks.

I will try moving the cell spot away from my router to see if this corrects it.

T

magenta4287944 I hope you read this. I worked on this for another couple of hours today and was finally able to fix the issue. I did call Tmobile support and they were polite, but not able to solve the problem. I changed my Netgear router to use channel 6 instead of channel 3, then updated my router's firmware. After doing this I still had issues (was getting about 0.5 mbps down as opposed to 25+ mbps down when the CellSpot was turned off). The fix turned out to be super simple and made me feel kind of silly. I simply moved the CellSpot so it was 3 or 4 feet away from my router. I am betting they were interfering with each other because I literally had them sitting side by side when I was having the problem. I hope this helps you or someone else having the same issue.

I know this is 4 years ago but I had to say thanks.  Moving the cellspot away from the router solved my problem. 

E

Ditto. Clearly the cord provided from Tmobile is like 5 ft long. The installation video from T-mobile shows the router adjacent. 

BTW: My fiasco started as my home internet became unusable. My TMOBILE home internet (grey tower) was running 80-100 mps download before. it started into the crapper after a few months. Dropped to 2-20 after cell spot install.My ping went from 50 to 1000 or not at all.

Spent hrs with Tmobile tech service (include 6 dropped cell calls in the process), We started with reboots of the internet box and now a refurb “new” tower (about to put that in).

Importantly my cell phone service (BTW on my new Tmobile Apple 11 and 12 iphones) started to drop calls about the same time as my internet quality decayed. Thus I expect it is a Tmobile tower issue.

Believe the cell spot is no better than the internet coming in-which in my case is from the same “degraded” cell tower.  The cell spot then degraded my internet download by 80%.

 

 

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