Question

5G home internet keeps dropping

J
Userlevel 5
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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?

258 replies

S

I have a time switch that turns off the gateway in the night and turns on in the morning. That does not solve the problem. Sometimes it loses connection only 1-2 hours after turning on.

S

I have the same internet dropping problem. I am using Nokia 5G21 gateway. Has anybody used or tested with any other brand or model gateway?

A

I have the same problem every three months or so. (I do not leave my hotspot plugged in, I turn it off when I’m done). I call T-Mobile, have to wait for a call back, then the CSR tries to be uber friendly without actually helping me, and I try not to get irritated because they obviously have no idea or ability to do anything - and when I finally get transferred to the tech queue, my call is dropped. So I have to start allll over again. Every three months.  Except tonight. Tonight I’m done. I can’t get on the internet (thank god for my phone being a different provider). I called, got CSR’d, got dropped by the tech line, AGAIN. 

I’m tired of calling, tired of eventually being told “oh, a tower’s down” - I’m going to have to look for another provider. I’m tired of getting this run around, when it’s obvious they’ve bought up so many people’s accounts (like Mint now) that they are probably exceeding capacity and so don’t care if I leave after ten years. Fine. 

S

I’m having the same issue.  I have 5 bars out of 5 pretty much all the time, though.  I wonder if I should switch back to a non-wireless ISP, or let them replace the tower, which, either way, requires me to re-setup all the wifi-devices in my house, though. 

A

Same issue after trial period now streaming lags, but my cameras stay on which is good. I cannot stream on more than one TV and definitely cannot have my phones on the wifi or it starts buffering

B

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 have had this issue for several weeks, and the frequency of the internet dropping has increases.  I have contacted T-Mobile numerous time and have been told that the cell tower nearest me is being repaired or updated.  I have not been given a date as to when this will end, and I’m now researching new providers.

L

That shouldn't be an issue. If the 5g cell phone I'm currently using doesn't drop, the gateway shouldn't be dropping it's connection either. 

This is clearly an issue with the gateway and nothing else. Likely poorly or cheaply designed. 

If I find another provider, I'll be cancelling my service too. Because this is getting old. 

B

The problem is that this is a wireless connection and not a normal land connection like fiber optics. It all lies in the security protocol where they are using a dynamic IP address which assigned to you by your internet service provider (T-Mobile) and is subject to change. This means that your IP address can and will change each time you connect to the internet, or while you are connected which causes the issue.  This makes it a bit harder for criminal hackers to monitor your online habits.  Until they switch over to a static IP this issue will continue to happen.  Nothing you do on your end will solve the problem as you will see by reading the other posts.  

T

 Here is a record of drops over the last two weeks. I reset the router at each event.

Not promising.

Date Time
03/18/23 03:50:00
03/18/23 10:49:00
03/19/23 05:32:00
03/19/23 08:01:00
03/19/23 08:28:00
03/20/23 00:52:00
03/20/23 07:35:00
03/20/23 15:02:00
03/20/23 22:03:00
03/21/23 01:41:00
03/21/23 18:53:00
03/25/23 13:34:00
03/25/23 18:21:00
03/25/23 18:34:00
03/26/23 06:55:00
03/26/23 12:57:00
03/27/23 15:36:00
03/29/23 09:10:00
03/29/23 15:20:00
03/29/23 15:28:00
03/29/23 20:09:00
03/31/23 05:49:00

You're lucky mines doing it ten times a hour around 8:30 pm

M

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 have been having the same issues they cannot fix the problem and are not willing to say that there system cannot handle the load they have sold too many subscriptions for the system that they have I have had y mobile 5G (lol) at 500mbs (?lol) for over three years it was good for year one and ever since it has it ed to shitbconnot watch tv and cannot use my computer.

 

N

With reference to my post above, I stopped resetting the router after drops. Made no difference. Same rate of disconnects, always short. Just annoying.

Tried Verizon 5G yesterday. Very poor performance. Bad enough that I did not try monitoring for drops. Taking it back today.

 

N

 Here is a record of drops over the last two weeks. I reset the router at each event.

Not promising.

Date Time
03/18/23 03:50:00
03/18/23 10:49:00
03/19/23 05:32:00
03/19/23 08:01:00
03/19/23 08:28:00
03/20/23 00:52:00
03/20/23 07:35:00
03/20/23 15:02:00
03/20/23 22:03:00
03/21/23 01:41:00
03/21/23 18:53:00
03/25/23 13:34:00
03/25/23 18:21:00
03/25/23 18:34:00
03/26/23 06:55:00
03/26/23 12:57:00
03/27/23 15:36:00
03/29/23 09:10:00
03/29/23 15:20:00
03/29/23 15:28:00
03/29/23 20:09:00
03/31/23 05:49:00
W

I was having a couple of drops a day and changed router setting from auto to 2.4mz and it dropped my download speed from 240 to about 80, still fast enough for my needs and haven’t had any drops since.🤞

N

The T-Mobile MODEM appears to be a “beta” product. I have consistent 4 bars signal, and yet experience frequent failures. Because a power off/on restart always fixes the problem, I don’t think it is network related. I bought an MSNSwitch from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/MSNSwitch-Internet-Enabled-Remote-Switch/dp/B081TKJJBS) and installed it between the MODEM and its power outlet. Not cheap at about $100. I set the switch to restart the MODEM every day at 1:00AM. That did not seem to help. I’ll probably remove that step. However, the ethernet connected MSNSwitch also power resets the MODEM when it sees the internet drop. That’s its real strength. The reset sequence takes about 5 minutes. The switch also emails me after the reset when it catches a drop. That creates a log of events in my mail box. The switch is complicated to setup, but customer service is good. And, we can share setup info if we wish. I think this will do until T gets the MODEM fixed.

W

Worked so very well yesterday. We are 4 days into our trial. 
 

Today nothing!!! T-Mobile techs state that their customers are experiencing congestion on the network. We live within two miles of 4 towers.

 

Priority is given to cell phone customers first.  5G Home Internet is not a priority, therefore throttling is applied.  Need to increase their capacity to provide seem less  uptime connectivity.

T
Userlevel 6
Badge +9

I recommend either sticking 4g or straight 5G for home internet gateway settings to never have this issue arise again ...

 

Where is this setting located in the app or web interface, which allows you to choose 4G or 5G only, for the gateway?

 

J

I am kind of into tech geek and might have figured why this tends to happen and my personal solution. When I had Tmobile home internet connect automatic 4g/5g is where I had your exact issue. When times of congestion is where signal would drop and try to connect to another tower disconnecting all devices. I had a similar issue with Mobile cell (iphone 13 pro max) when setting up auto 4g/5g connection even when 5g avaliable some arreas not good and sys would lock internet data and would be unusable. I recommend either sticking 4g or straight 5G for home internet gateway settings to never have this issue arise again which again have not had any drops since then been about a week with absolutely no drops, had this happen almost daily on dropped/disconnected internet and understand the frustration. Def not the best service overall bc of deprioritization but with time service will get better, had Tmobile in San Diego since 06’ and service back then was absolute garbage. Maybe in the future they will prioritize tmobile home internet bc when it works I can gets speeds of over 270mbps at times

R
Badge

I don't think its signal dropping, its T-mobile corporate greed, as they very quickly try to weed out customers that use too much of “unlimited data”. Once you start using more than in my best guess estimate 350gb a month, suddenly you start having “coverage issues” as per customer reps scripts that bean counters wants them to read.

N

Having the same issues with our T-Mobile Home internet. We have Excellent 5Guc coverage,  but I’m having to restart the modem 3-4 times per day. Again, we’re in great coverage but keep getting dropped until reboot.

 

 

A
Userlevel 1
Badge

Best advice is to get rid of your T mobile! I have to turn my internet box off and on every day, plus the app won't connect to it ever.   They lied about trades and free phones etc… now I'm stuck till I pay off everything. Then Ill have to try Mint.

M
Userlevel 1

Have the newer 5G home gateway. It was fine for a few months, the last few months it has been un-reliable. internet connectivity just drops (not slow, drops 100%).  This is not just the gateway by cell data on my phones also dies at the same time!   Multiple calls into T-mobile, technical tickets and promises of call backs, nothing.  Everyone should file an FCC complaint: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/

 

N

Have had the device two days and it works great! :) To the point that I have cancelled xfinity internet. Not a great test period, agreed, but ….
 

Seem to have the latest black box, looks new, 4 bars signal strength. Good cell phone signal strength out and about in the neighborhood. We also recently switched cell service from Verizon to T-Mobile.

Speed test varies a bit with the box but generally can get up to 200-300 plus, download.

However, with a boatload of computer hardware/software diagnosing experience in hand, I will not spend a lot of time working with support if I start developing drops, I will just dump the service and go crawling back to Comcast. 

Update:  I’m actually getting up into the 400-500 range at times. Even when it was showing 40-50 mbps the other night during prime time streaming, everything was running great. It’s just me and my wife here in a one story house, with not much concurrent device use. All of our devices, Roku box, iPhones, laptops, iPads, are late models that run fast.

I will update this in a month ….

 

 

Any update? You would be probably the only one not having issues...

I

I have tried all of the solutions on this thread and none worked. Eventually after many tries at calling, I got a local center out of California. They put in a “trouble ticket” to have an engineer go check out the tower (less than a mile a way).  Whatever they did, it worked.  No problems since.  I’ve put in several calls to find out what exactly was done so I know how to raise it if it happens again, but despite taking messages no one has called me back.  I would recommend using the key phrase “trouble ticket” and ask them to open one up and check the tower.  Hope this helps.  Happy to answer questions.

H

One possible solution.
It has been about a month since we signed up with Tmobile 5G home service in Oct ‘22.  The model of our black 5G tower is FAST-5688W.  Yes, it is sensitive to placement and also the proximity to the Netgear Nighthawk wifi router, causing the 5G internet to randomly drop over the initial 8 days.  That is until I moved the Netgear wifi router from 2 inches away to 12+ inches away.  It has been almost 3 weeks of reliable internet since.  We’re very happy that T-Mobile is available in the mountains of Colorado.  Subsequently we cancelled our Starlink reservation.  

D

I had run into this issue. After much research and fiddling with the gateway placement, I discovered some things. The gateway would drop connection at night, in the middle of the night. I have it placed near a window, but I have vertical blinds that I draw at night. The connection seems to be extremely sensitive to the placement of the gateway in my area, and I started checking the advanced cellular metrics as I played with different placement of the gateway. I figured out that some of the parameters would change from “poor” to “good” just by a few inches difference in the placement, and closing the blinds would affect the parameters even further. What I think was happening is that at night when the blinds were drawn, certain cellular parameters became very “poor” and the connection was dropped. I’m hoping I have fixed this by keeping the blinds slightly open a night. We will see. 

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