Question

5G home internet keeps dropping



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@Fredreed I’m still on hold waiting to report this again.  I’ve asked a number of times what they’re going to DO to fix this, and asked more than once if they’ll send somebody out.  I think I’m about a phone call away from cancelling, as this is eating up too much of my time.  I don’t understand how my cell phone can have a constant internet connection, but a device that’s much simpler can’t.  

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I don’t think that your router is the problem I suspect that something in your area  is causing this problem and I would call T-Mobile and ask them to send out a tech ASAP to take a look at your problem in person.

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@Fredreed I unplugged it again and did another walk around the house.  Aside from one spot in the house that I get four bars about 5% of the time, and 2 bars the rest of the time, I think it’s in the best spot.  Whatever’s happening seems to be getting worse, as I’m now up to my fourth crash in two days.  

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well that brings it back to something has to be blocking the signal or causing the signal to be weak and whatever It is causing It who knows. If there’s nothing wrong with the tower it has to a blocked signal or something has to be causing the signal to become weak.  I’m sorry but I’m out of ideas except that but good luck.

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I’ve not tried it in other parts of the house, because where it’s at seems to get the best signal.  I’m not sure it’s realistic to test it at another person’s house, as we need the internet to work and the fact that it works fine 99% of the time makes it tough to catch the 1% of the time that it doesn’t.  (Said another way, if I brought it to another location, I’d have to commit to leaving it there for at least several days to see if it it stays up or not.)  

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It’s possible that there could be a blockage coming from the tower but if that’s not the problem then it could be something else causing the signal to be blocked. If you tried everything like all possible locations In your house then the only other thing it can be is something has to be blocking the signal. What you could do is take your device to your friends house in your location and see If they get the same problem if so then you would know that something is wrong in your location and t-mobile needs to investigate It further.

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@Fredreed they have run tower tests a number of times, and have stated all is well with that, and the device consistently shows 2-3 bars of signal. Would a tower signal blockage kick devices off the wifi/Ethernet network?

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I would to have this that maybe it’s not the device that is having problems but maybe possibly something could be blocking the signal from the tower to the router or maybe the tower is having problems with getting the signal to the router.

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So as a quick update, I’m still running a case fan under it (and it DOES seem cooler), and I now have turned off the WIFI from the gateway, relying on two ethernet cords for connection (one for my router, and the other for my smartthings hub).  It has, unfortunately, failed again in less than 24 hours.  The tech I was talking to is supposed to call me back at some point about possibly trying a new SIM card, as well as report back about what the engineering team is finding, but I’m starting to lose faith pretty quickly that I’ll find something that’ll work for me. 

 

18 days of uptime is pretty amazing @jdt254 .  If I could get to that, I’d probably just restart the thing once a week just to be sure that we don’t get intermittent faults at times that would impact our work, but at this point, I’m not clearing 24 hours even with a case fan and a router handling the heavy lifting of my home network.  

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Yes the tech support for their home Internet service is terrible and the biggest problem I have is that they can’t speak English clearly so you can’t understand what they are saying to you. But if your having problems with the service I would recommend that you try a router and if that doesn’t work My only suggestion then is to try a different service for home Internet. For me I can about 300 to 350 for download and about say on a good day Upload 40 to a low 20.

Userlevel 3

Constantly drops. I changed from the white gateway to the 5g round black gateway hoping to get away from the disconnecting issue...I still disconnect from the internet for extended periods a day, multiple times a day. 
 

The app shows that all is well and connected to the internet but that is not the case. This internet is very unreliable and frustrating. I have to manually reload several of the devices that get kicked from the internet. 

I will be forced to cancel the service if this continues...confidence in the TMOBILE products is deteriorating.

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@jdt254 already linked to my overheating post.  Even with two cooling fans running when I was using the built-in wi-fi I would still lose my connection every few days.  Offloading the wi-fi to a dedicated router helped me get an 18 day uptime.  I think I managed to crash it last night with a solid upload and download running at the same time.  I’m also only getting a 4G connection.  If you’re getting 5G speeds it may run even hotter.  I would definitely switch to a dedicated wi-fi router though.  Rebooting twice a month is much better than rebooting twice a day.

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If you can't get any help from T-Mobile's support staff, take your complaint to the FCC (see my signature for a link to their complaint department). If the FCC accepts it, they'll forward your complaint to T-Mobile who has to respond to your issues. I'm still in the middle of my own complaint without much change in T-Mobile's behavior, but it did give me a chance to speak with someone from T-Mobile's Office of the President. Still waiting to see the results of my pestering, but if they think they're going to blow me off that easy, they're underestimating the stubbornness of a pissed off consumer, haha. 

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Unfortunately you aren't the only one having these issues. A quick search on this site will show you how many others are experiencing connection drops, speed issues, and general dissatisfaction with T-Mobile's Home Internet service. 

 

This thread discusses the overheating issue, but since it hasn't fixed your problem, it probably won't do you any good. 

There is another thread that talked about connecting the gateway to a router like you talked about toward the end of your message. From what I remember reading, that may not be the solution you're hoping for either. If I can find that thread, I'll link if here too. 

 

I know this hasn't helped any, and I wish someone who actually works for T-Mobile would address these concerns. From my experience, constant pestering has gotten me further up the chain-of-command to voice my complaints, but even that hasn't gotten me any closer to resolving my own issues. Not trying to discourage you, but if you have any other internet options, you may consider switching.

T-Mobile's Home Internet push, particularly to rural Americans with no alternatives, has been plagued with issues, ranging from inadequate service, gateway device problems, and unethical billing/benefit practices. It's a mess, and if T-Mobile actually cared about its customer base, they wouldn't roll out a service with so many issues. 

 

(Here is the link I referenced before https://community.t-mobile.com/other-devices-11/alternative-router-for-home-internet-service-need-bridgemode-33531)

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