Question

5G home internet keeps dropping

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D

Same problem here. I’ve had the new gateway less than 24 hours and it has dropped all WiFi devices twice in the middle of meetings. No noticeable overheating on mine - it seems like more of a software issue.

The support “technician” didn’t acknowledge anything I said about this being a common issue with other users and suggested that everything was fine if my devices are connected after rebooting the gateway. They said they would check back in three days to see if the issue continues, and only then would they send another device. Rebooting is NOT “troubleshooting” as they suggested and it is definitely not a solution. Troubleshooting would be looking at error logs to see exactly WHY all devices are getting disconnected but, unfortunately, this device doesn’t give access to anything like that through the internal admin page.

Speeds are impressive *when it works* but dropping connections like this is unacceptable.

J

T-Mobile keeps records of calls and usually will provide a ticket number. If you made another call they could look up the information based upon your account information as they record pretty much everything. 

That is good you reached a personable support person that really wanted to help out. I had a similar experience so I know there are some good ones and some that are just clueless. If you have the Arcadyan router vs. the Nokia the configuration options are very limited in the Arcadyan so support needs to ramp up on their game to target what they say to each customer. 

The problem is what to do in the interim for internet service if you want to stay with T-Mobile and avoid any sort of contract that ties you up. Sort of between a rock and a hard spot.

Well, the tech support person said they’d personally call me back in May/June, so I can get their name then. If this works out, I will definitely take the time to make sure T Mobile knows who this person is. Anyway, I have the Arcadyan router. I couldn’t even get into the router to check the settings when I was on the phone with tech support, so I don’t know. I’m back to my old provider for the moment, but T Mobile just told me to hang on to the Arcadyan router without charge for a couple of months while they do tower upgrades. I’m fine with that. Right now my internet service with a different provider is absolutely terrible (16 Mbps download; <1 Mbps upload), so I don’t have a lot of options. According to my current provider, to get a line up to my house and take advantage of the blazing fast speeds, my portion of the cost would be around $5,000. Forget it. So, I was really banking on the T Mobile 5G home internet getting me up in the neighborhood of 40Mbps up and down. That would be totally fine for what I do. We stream a lot, though, so satellite is out. I guess I’ll just wait until summer and see if the tower upgrades solve our problems. 

C
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It is a tower issue. T-Mobile sets it up to constantly be switching from tower to tower. Sometimes it will do it seamlessly, while other times you’ll notice a little interruption in service and then it will continue, unfortunately there are times when the tower switch is delayed long enough that it kicks you off the system altogether. They need to fix this by either not having the system switch towers or by making sure tower switches are close enough so the delay isn’t so long that you completely lose signal.

P

While it may be an acceptable “solution” for some, it is not acceptable to me. No devices are allowed in the DMZ on my network. It works this way with every other internet provider (not that we have a multitude of choices but to name just a couple: Comcast, Frontier) and it has to work that way with TMo. It will not be the case for a while. They are behind the curve and the internet is something new for them. The phones work fine on their network. They just have to figure out the internet gateways. I’ll wait for Frontier to lay their fiber down in our neighborhood and then switch and TMo will not have it fixed by then. Pity, I really like the idea of a 5G gateway.

G

I was having internet disconnects at least once a day. Purchased a WiFi reset device called Keep Connect. It pings Google I think on a regular basis and if it detects the internet is down it will power reset whatever is plugged into it. It will also email/text you every time it happens. For some strange reason I’ve only had it reset once in the last month since I installed it. Obviously its not a solution for the problem, but its a decent band aid. 

iTinkeralot
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Well, you need to translate the problem statement a little and keep in mind, if you continue to do the same thing, you can expect the same results. The newer T-Mobile 5G Nokia built gateway router is yes a totally different appliance but it does have both 4G LTE & 5G capability plus the WIFI is 802.11ax so it also can support the newer 6G wireless clients on the LAN. If you go out and buy a flashy new laptop with a 6G wifi card you will be happy you jumped to the future solution. A “crash” and a uplink to tower signal loss are not the same animal. Some people have reported issues with freezes or other behaviors but nothing is perfect but the newer Nokia 5G router/gateway may just be a major improvement for you. The problems I experienced in July were related to the operation of gear on the tower NOT the gateway router itself. If your location is within 2-3 miles from a T-Mobile tower with the mid band 5G signal you would see a significant increase in bandwidth over LTE and much lower latency for the communication back and forth. The faster 5G mid band n41 channel can provide significant punch in the 1-2.5 mile radius from the tower and a HUGE jump from LTE. The lower broader delivery on the n71 channel will extend out and cover a much larger area and still provide 150-200 Mbs down even 5 miles away from the tower with the 5G and have lower latency. With both the 4G LTE primary signal and the 5G on the secondary signal you have a distinct advantage. You would have nothing to loose going with the newer router. My take is it would be a win. I was given the option to just go with the LTE can or join the BETA program and wait three weeks for the newer 5G router. I opted for the 5G with the knowledge that the latency is lower and the bandwidth capability is much higher. The future is with 5G and 6G NOT 4G LTE. If you are given the chance to upgrade to the newer router my advice is to go for it! Think of it as a sleek version of R2D2 vs a trashcan. Put life in perspective and lets look on the sunny side of life. You will not know until you try it. You might find the issues you were having just go away. I try to keep a sunny disposition with the T-Mobile support engineers as they may not all be perfect but they are there trying to help out. They do appreciate consideration and respond. I try to treat people how I want to be treated as a rule. It pretty much gets positive results every time.

Having remote reboot capability can be possible, but let’s be real. I worked in IT for 22 years and we built in extra terminal servers and IP connected APC power strips with alternate access portals to ALWAYS have such capability. If the connection to the gateway appliance only has the single tower connection we can't expect miracles. This is after all a home gateway appliance and well the price is right. Is it perfect? No but it is decent for what it is. Mine ran from early January through June without much of any burps. Sure July was a bit frustrating but now with the tower upgrade and equipment having attention it is back to stable and has even better bandwidth results. T-Mobile is pushing out the 5G rapidly and anything that is new will have its challenges as it matures. My only option here was Hughes Net with a 2 year contract and $20 more per month after the second month. That was a pretty poor option. I had nothing to loose with the T-Mobile solution and no contract! I get 10X the upload and download speeds I was getting from the provider in California for less cost. It is a win!

U
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iTinkeralot
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Indeed that is the Arcadyan KVD21 T-Mobile 5G Home Internet New Gateway. If you want to know a bit more go to see Nater Tater on YouTube. 

Better? Time will tell. Right now it is missing many features but if it can hole a signal lock and not cook itself then that is a step in the right direction. 

W

I've had this service for 2 months now. In fact paid my second bill 2 days ago. Started about a week ago maybe 3 or 4 times a day, however today Ive lost the gateway 17 times. I power cycle my router on a daily because the new nokia5g tower is....well....of horrible design to say the least. My tower stays in a location that is dry and 65°F at ALL times. This happens on my 2 wired lines out of the router so no wifi is a part of this. Never ANY errors on cellular or lan logs just a complete drop in gateway connection then 10 secs later back in business. EXTREMELY irritating when playing online games because of the obvious disconnect and then PC telling me no internet. I worked as a repairman for network operations at Birch Telecom for yearsssss but that was before 4th gen wireless rolled out. All of my signals and noise ratios are actually nice. For some reason it acts like authentication is lost for a moment and then re-auths the network. All in all from logs and watching signals, everything looks great but it's not...lol.

U
Userlevel 1

No one wants to hear all the mumbo-jumbo they just wanna plug it in and have it work.

So many technical variables split between two towers all the things you’ve mentioned and others.

 

I don’t need any features I just need it to work I’ll check back in a month

 

T

I Have been rooting for you T-mobile. You are severely letting me down. I am paying more than $200 a month for FOUR locations (via two different accounts, one business and one not), yet, you will not help me. And better yet, your “promised” business hotline will NEVER pick up the phone. I have attempted to call multiple times all for me to sit on hold for great lengths of time.

 

This neglects all of the previous issues mentioned T-mobile are ignoring. I was only getting 1-2 disconnects a day from the same issue everyone else is however, after some outsourced employees messed with my router and reset it, I’m getting a disconnect for greater than 60 seconds at a time DOZENS of times an hour. Makes the internet utterly useless. This is an ongoing problem at every single location I have these routers launched. I was promised that the Business line was local for the greater portion of the day, I can’t even confirm because they will not pick up the phone!

 

TMOBILE. STOP IGNORING EVERYONE AND PICK UP YOUR ACT. I was rooting for you. Now I’m not.

I can’t wait for LinusTechTips to review this heaping piece of garbage and trash this home internet. Not like it’s available in Canada anyways.

G
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I’m having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line.  I’ve had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network.  When I say “drop the network,” I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it’s broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says “no network found.  (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.)  Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn’t prevent it from happening again.  Whatever is happening doesn’t seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won’t just disconnect randomly.  

 

To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn’t have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway’s wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.)  They’ve sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact).   I’ve noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it’s an issue with the device overheating.  However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting.  The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together.  Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the “heavy lifting” of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it?  I don’t have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I’m running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.   

 

Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?

I just received the Arcadyan router a day ago. I actually have 4 bars and still getting max 29mbps down and 40 upload. Had the tech check the towers around me to see was anything wrong with them for why my download was so slow. He couldn’t give me an answer to why. and to add insult to comedy he asked me to do a survey after our call….LOL!!! It was so funny that i couldnt be mad at him or TMO. I really hope they get this together because i will easily hop back over to spectrum and at least get a stable coax connection with an expensive price tag… DAYUM!!! Come on TMO I’m rooting for you guys b4 i make that next move….

H

We're having the same issue with losing the connection. We've had T-Mobile home internet for about 6 weeks. It was fine for about a month, but the last 2 weeks the modem will lose connection about every 1.5 to 2 days. Unplugging the modem and plugging it back in will fix it for another 1.5 to 2 days before it drops again and I have to unplug it again. I have no idea why it was good for a month then started having issues every other day. The only change I made was to add a second SSID that broadcasts just the 5Ghz signal so I can connect my cell phone to it because my phone would always connect to the 2.4Ghz network rather than being directed to the 5Ghz signal on the SSID that broadcasts both signals.

O
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Ok so far problem seems solved I called tmobile and talk to tech they sent me out another tower.  This time I didn't switch out the Sim cards but called t mobile and had them configure the Sim card that came with the unit so far so good almost a week without a rest 

iTinkeralot
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Keep in mind a call to T-Mobile support and a direct question will probably get you the answer to the tower location. They know, they can see where your router associates. They have the PCI information and can provide the coordinates to the tower. They did for me. If you call in first thing in the morning that is the best time I found. If they are busy and the automated message prompts you for a call back in 10-15 minutes just opt for that. It works well. I just did all the background work with cellmapper.net and using my iPhone in field test mode to really solidify the data. If I decide to get the external MIMO YAGI antenna it will be ~$300 to have the lightning arrestors and the entire ball of wax. I wanted to be 100% so I could get the best solution. 

C

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. 

Love this idea of the FCC!

J
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I don’t know the answer to that. I spoke to probably 3-4 different technicians before we straightened it out. I was told at one point the new 5G gateway was essentially a dual antenna and could receive either a 4G LTE signal or 5G signal. I was also told the gateway looked for,  an attached to wherever it received the best signal. So you would assume if there wasn’t a good 5G signal it would grab a 4G signal.  In our case it didn’t work at all. It was my suggestion since we hadn’t returned the 4G LTE receiver to reactivate it and give it a try. The tech agreed and after we hooked it back up it worked fine so I stayed with the 4G LTE receiver and sent the 5G back. There seems to be 2 possibilities: 1) The new 5G gateways are not capable of receiving the 4G signal and 2) T-Mobile is putting the 5G gateways out in the market where towers are not yet broadcasting that signal. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for our experience.

T

Update: I can now confirm that if I leave the trashcan off for ~5 minutes, the netgear does not need to be powered off during trashcan’s startup. 

BillA
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Log into 192.16812.1 and make sure you are rocking the current firmware (say’s Software) … 1.2101.00.1609.   If not call Tech Support and have them push this update to your Nokia.

Correct placement and orientation also helps, took me months to find the exact best spot, inches can make or break the best connection. I have no alternative ISP so I was forced to learn this the hard way. 

Here in Hawaii my Nokia connects to B2 & N71, huge improvement in speed with the 1609 firmware.  My previous best speeds were 40 down/10 up ... now those are my absolute minimum speeds.  With the built-in WiFi my average is now 80/10. I no longer use the internal WiFi so I turned down the 2.4/5GHz transmission powers to 12%. 

I recently added an Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE & WiFi 6 Lite Access point in a double NAT configuration and was surprised to see peaks at 250/70, average 140/40. Until Tmobile gives us bridge mode that’s how I roll my Nokia FG-21. 

I’m now a happy camper with Tmobile Internet. 

 

Dulce est desipere in loco.
iTinkeralot
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You are probably right about the single tower. If you can get a picture of the tower and the radio configuration we could try to identify the equipment on the tower. In such a small farming community adding an additional tower does not seem like it would be an economic choice for T-Mobile unless they have leased space on the other tower and have a more economical solution. I would think they would leverage the existing tower space vs adding yet another tower.

W

What are the actual Bands and RSRP, RSRQ and SNR reports from the web UI? It is clear when it has the 5G NR standing you get a solid down but when the signal does down are you seeing the PCI for the 4G LTE and 5G NR cells changing? That sounds very frustrating. If the behavior stays wonky after the router swap I would seriously question if there has been work going on on the tower and ask if they have had other complaints about the operation in the area. That close to the tower it should be good.

For the primary, the PCI is ALWAYS 308, that’s the B66 tower. It never changes, the primary tower is by far the most consistent connection I have had. I can’t even recall a time it said I had no connection other than when I took the sim card out to try and cool it down. If I could even just disable the secondary tower I probably wouldn’t have drops at all, but that would sacrifice speed from n71.

It’s the secondary one that’s always flakey. As we have established, the cells on the second one occasionally change between the two. There’s no rhyme or rhythm between when it’s on one or the other.

In terms of the RSRP, RSRQ and SNR, the primary tower is stable unless it’s raining. Even then I don’t actually lose connection.

The secondary one shows quite a bit of noise. RSRQ is usually -14, and the RSRP ranges between -110 to -119, or dropping all together. SNR is usually 0, sometimes -2. Sometimes 1.

S

I had another thought or two about troubleshooting this. You have clients upon the ASUS and still have LAN 2 for leverage. The Roku test was informative but what about connecting a small gigabit switch to LAN 2 and using a client or two multi-homed in effect. You could use the investigation client(s) with wireless to the ASUS and have an Ethernet connection to a switch on LAN 2. If the client has issues hitting the internet through the ASUS then disable the wireless and enable the Ethernet port and check results. Maybe take a client and the Nokia router with the 2.5 Ghz wireless on a different SSID and look at results from that angle as well. The Asus ac68u has four Ethernet ports as well as the 802.11ac so take advantage of the physical ports on the ASUS as well. Test and verify. If you have a client with multiple Ethernet interfaces and plenty of resources stand up some virtual machines as well. Linux  would provide yet another data point and physical Ethernet LAN ports tend to just work with Linux. Lots of tools in the Linux environment to play with. Use different clients, Apple, Windows, Linux, Android, Raspberry PI clients. OK maybe I am making assumptions but today it is not uncommon to have all of the above. 

Another parallel investigation you can do is leverage your cell phone and if it is an Apple iPhone put it into field test mode. See if it communicates to the same tower as the Nokia router by confirming both report the same PCI values for the tower signals. Android phones have applications for tower location so yet another option. If you have not yet used cellmapper.net to validate the location of the tower your router connects to i highly recommend doing so. It is simple enough to use and very informative. What cellular channels are you linking to? How strong and clean are the signals? Do the cellular signals bounce/change from one channel to another? Do any of the local devices record errors or drops? Profile the behavior in detail. Focus on any device that can be influential and stands out but keep an open mind on other actors in the path.

Use the web searches to get ideas but focus on the facts. The values and behaviors you can confirm. Don’t overlook all the tools you can put to work. Keep notes and analyze the operation in a systematic periodic manner. 

The objective: Determine with more certainty where the problem resides. Look at the physical layer before you go up the stack. 


thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. There’s a lot to unpack there and I know I don’t have the wisdom or time to get that deep in to this.

 

getting the right dns config on the asus seems to have resolved the issue for me, at least for the last ~36 hours  

 

you mentioned you’d not tried the Pi-hole, it will only takes a couple of hours to set up and will improve your browsing experience. Two tips - don’t go wild adding a bunch of blocklists; get the iOS “pihole remote” app to go along with it  (stats are interesting and it offers the fastest way to temp disable the Pi-hole or add exceptions)

 

T

Fellas, the answer is very simple they have no idea what they are doing with  the internet pacakage F troop here.  Go else where they are charging and not providing the service  Get your money back and move on:)  I tried all of the things mentioned and in each case at the endof the apologies and we will make this right verbiage they never called back with a satisfactory resolution or corective action that allowed me to simply enjoy the service.  My conclusion based on this is that they have no idea how to fix the problem and are accepting my monthly payment for their gateway internet service which nevre provided service for a complete month.  it was good for a week then bad for two weeks etc...

W

HWhat are the actual Bands and RSRP, RSRQ and SNR reports from the web UI? It is clear when it has the 5G NR standing you get a solid down but when the signal does down are you seeing the PCI for the 4G LTE and 5G NR cells changing? That sounds very frustrating. If the behavior stays wonky after the router swap I would seriously question if there has been work going on on the tower and ask if they have had other complaints about the operation in the area. That close to the tower it should be good.

So I just lost the b71 tower and I didn’t have a drop thanks to my primary tower. I keep leaning towards it somehow being a heating issue. Either way I’m probably gonna ask for another device to swap out with and see how that goes. I’m at a loss of what it could be at this point. Thanks for your help, I’ll let you know when/if I decide to get that external antenna you showed me via DM.

A

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