Question

5G Home Internet nightly slow down

M
Userlevel 2
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Hey all, I’ve had the black 5G gateway for a couple days now, and have been a T-Mobile customer for just as long. I guess the issue I’m having is looking like one that a lot of other people are as well.

During the day my gateway pulls about 500 Mbps and has a “Very Good” signal. Without moving or changing anything about the setup, usage area, or anything, around 8PM Eastern my speeds go down to MAX 5 Mbps.

Nothing has changed other than the time of the day. I have a ticket open for the “local engineering department” to troubleshoot. It’ll randomly be good during the night and then go back to the unusable 5 Mbps.

I relayed this to Customer Care, and while they seem sympathetic to the plight, they ultimately just want me to continuously restart the gateway so they can reconnect it to the tower because it has “stopped communicating.” Is this the common reply that everyone is getting? Restart on restart while waiting for engineers to troubleshoot your wifi, only to then get told you need to restart to be reconnected to the tower, and then ultimately a factory default when they’ve exhausted their checklist?

44 replies

copz1998
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

@MAUI671 you seem to have an interesting problem. Have you seen the new T-Mobile video on gateway placement? You can watch it here: https://www.t-mobile.com/support/home-internet/t-mobile-gateway?cmpid=HEIS_EM_C_HINTCSTRET_3M3ZWLNUSWVE0BMXM97376#placement

In essence, you should launch your Placement Assistant in your T-Mobile Internet app to confirm the direction of your cell tower. Or, just move the gateway to a few different locations, high as possible like the top of a bookcase. Watch the signal strength meter when doing so. Because of your signal drop at 8pm EST, I would do it then to see if you are missing something about gateway placement. Block out an hour and give it a try. Generally, it is beneficial to be proactive about solving your own problems. 

Let us know how it works.

I am not a T-Mobile employee, but like helping others.
M
Userlevel 2
Badge

@copz1998 I hear your suggestion, but follow the train of thought here. The signal is 500 Mbps in its location during daytime hours. Nothing changes but the time of day. Once 8 PM Eastern hits, the signal is EXACTLY the same still, but download drops from 500 Mbps to 5 Mbps. Again, no changes but the time of day.

I’ve done the repositioning multiple times now at the behest of customer care and still to no avail. Spent more than an hour on it at this point trying to be proactive. I’ve used the app, watched the SNR, RSSI, etc. and no changes to the speed no matter how high good I get those values. Any other suggestions for me to be proactive with?

copz1998
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

@MAUI671 it sounds like you have done plenty of problem solving (like many of us have). In your case I would be pestering (I mean communicating) with customer service. Your numbers are very unusual. 

Because home internet is a degregraded service (mobile phone users have priority), the more cellphone users, the slower the speeds for home internet users. 

I am curious, what are your SINR, RSRQ, & RSRP metrics during the day compared to 8pm. I wonder if your SINR drops to 5 or so, which would mean there are numerous other signals interfering with your cell tower 5G signal. 

Curious.

I am not a T-Mobile employee, but like helping others.
B

He is not the only one only mine hits at midnight. I'm not getting anywhere near his speeds during the daytime I usually average between 90 and 125 and for download it's about 35. After midnight it will drop down to 8 to 30, and for download believe it or not I will still get 35. It's something that T-Mobile is doing on its end it's not something that the customers are doing on their end. I'm about to go back to the chord just for the consistency. I am literally resetting my modem three to four times every night. It is good for about 20 minutes and then right back down to nothing and I am one below full bars as far as signal strength to the 5G Tower... Don't have that problem with my phone's hotspot if I decide to use that so it's not a signal to the tower issue it's a hardware issue or a network tower downgrade to conserve on money or power after peak hours. I know it's hella frustrating though.

E

Been having the same exact issue. Every night it slows down significantly. There is no change in placement that improves the situation. Any desire to solve this problem TMobile? 

copz1998
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

@ECMP it is helpful to have your gateway metrics and an understanding of your location. Are you located near a freeway? If so, the morning and evening commute traffic will impact your signal (download/upload speeds) as T-mobile prioritizes cellular traffic over home internet traffic. For example, I am near a freeway and my speeds drop to about 90-110 Mbps down during commute hours and rise to 150-250 Mbps at night with less traffic. 

Using your T-Mobile Internet app, tap the “MORE” link at the bottom of the screen, then Advanced cellular metrics, then 5G. What are your RSRP, RSRQ, and SINR metrics? Which band are you connected to (n41 or n71)? 

See the chart below for interpreting the metrics.

 

I am not a T-Mobile employee, but like helping others.
C
Badge

I am new to t mobile as well and experiencing the same issue. Slow down isn't even the correct term for it. Took 4 hours not not even see a half hour episode! Reset the device so mant times my head hurts and I live within sight distance of a tower. I left a service that wasn't fantastic but so much better than this and not able to get that plan back as it is no longer available. T mobile needs to step it up quickly or ditch the false advertising thst is currently being used! So frustrating and disappointing!!! 

copz1998
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

@CookieJ if you have the T-Mobile home internet service, then you must qualify for being in a 5G network area and able to receive a 5G signal from a nearby cell tower. 

That said, let's try to diagnose the cause so that we can resolve your issue. Please answer a few questions that will be helpful in the diagnosing the problem. 

  1. Did you use the Placement Assistant in the T-Mobile Internet app? If not, you can access it from the app Home Screen: tap the More about connection quality link on the Home Screen > Launch placement assistant > OK! Let's do this > you can watch the video if it will help, then “skip video” which will launch the placement assistant > enter your address or share location (if you use “share location” and your address shows up then you are assured to be connected to the network). It will take 30-45 seconds to confirm your location.  Use the “Camera” mode for a direct visual of where your cell tower is located to where your gateway is located in your home. Try to make sure your gateway is located in a high point of your home and clear of any obstructions. Here is a helpful video: 

     

  2. What are your metrics - now that you are confident your gateway is located in the best possible location, your metrics will show the quality of your connection. In your T-Mobile Internet app > tap “MORE” at the bottom of the Home Screen > tap “Advanced cellular metrics” > tap “5G” > and let us know your RSRQ, RSRP, SINR and which band you are connected to. You should be on band n41 or n71. Look at the chart posted above in this thread for. the ideal readings. to get the best readings, slightly rotate your gateway about 1/8th of a turn and then check the metrics to see if they change for the better. Repeat until you get the best metrics.  

Let us know the results. I hope this helps. 

I am not a T-Mobile employee, but like helping others.
K

Same problem here. I had 5G Home Internet for 10 month now. It was great the first 8 month with consistent speeds of 250+ then the trouble started. My speeds now go down as low as 1.5 mbps and are consistently in the single digits during long stretches of the day. It does seem to be worse starting at about 6 PM but sometimes I have lousy speeds all day long. It usually gets better again late at night. I called customer service yesterday and after going through reboots and factory reset to exclude any issues at my end they told me that it’s an issue at their end and they were going to refer it to engineering. The support person scheduled a follow up call with me in 3 days to see if the issue has been resolved. At least they didn’t BS me and stated that it’s a T-Mobile issue. That’s still better than Xfinity. They had me try useless stuff over and over again and I would be without Internet for several hours during the day on a regular basis. So for now I’ll wait and see if Tmobile can solve it.

S

I am having the same issues.  Service was great for about 8 months and now is terribly slow and almost unusable in the evening.  My guess is that the network is congested and needs to be upgraded.  I’ve done a ton of repositioning and closely watching the metrics to get the best signal possible.  
 

I not only have slow speeds, but extremely high latency which is terrible for trying to play games online.  I can’t recommend the service any longer.

U
Userlevel 1

Me too, daily service slowdown around midnight  on 5G internet  thing and on cell phone. Annoying  Should I switch to other cell and internet provider?

M

I am having the same issue, except my router actually switches to 4G and the speedtest does not even reach 2. This happens every evening about 8:30 PM EST. I reboot several times and finally give up. I’m going to start looking for a new carrier. Daytime is fine, but after 8:30 PM EST it is impossible to watch anything on Internet TV as it pauses and spins. This is not about placement of the gateway either. I’ve gone through all those motions too. And when you call for help they make you spend hours on the phone with support people that do nothing in the end to fix it.

 

F

Anyone have any updates on this? Running into the exact same issue word for word. 8 o’clock in the evenings for me. From 200mbps to 5mbps if I’m lucky. 

E

Funny most T-mobile home internet users don’t know they are treated like 2nd class citizens and are always prioritized lower than cell phone users. That’s why the service is so cheap lol. If you want to know for sure just push it with support and eventually they will admit that home internet users are always considered heavy data users and deprioritized. So when lots of people are using the network (ie. Evening) your speeds will plummet as you are deprioritized over cell phone users. I’ve had it for a month and I’m canceling, service is just so inconsistent. You can read all about how it here:

“T-Mobile Home Internet (available in select locations) customers receive the same network prioritization as Heavy Data Users”

https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/internet-service

 

R
Userlevel 4
Badge +4

Actually, if cell phone users use to much data in a month, they are also tagged high-volume users and get the same priority as TM Internet customers.  TMI users are just considered high-volume from the get-go...because we basically are.  That said, if you look at the contract, there are some weasel-words in there about fair distribution of resources to all their users.  I *think* that means if you use gobs of data (I don’t know that that means, but say approaching a TB a month), you may get assigned a lower priority than almost everyone else.  I would suggest for those of you that are seeing massive slow-downs during times of congestion, that you check to see how much data you are using in a month.  Do you leave TVs on for no reason?  Do you watch a lot of 4K on multiple TVs?  If you are in this category, that may be the reason.

E

Hey all, I’ve had the black 5G gateway for a couple days now, and have been a T-Mobile customer for just as long. I guess the issue I’m having is looking like one that a lot of other people are as well.

During the day my gateway pulls about 500 Mbps and has a “Very Good” signal. Without moving or changing anything about the setup, usage area, or anything, around 8PM Eastern my speeds go down to MAX 5 Mbps.

Nothing has changed other than the time of the day. I have a ticket open for the “local engineering department” to troubleshoot. It’ll randomly be good during the night and then go back to the unusable 5 Mbps.

I relayed this to Customer Care, and while they seem sympathetic to the plight, they ultimately just want me to continuously restart the gateway so they can reconnect it to the tower because it has “stopped communicating.” Is this the common reply that everyone is getting? Restart on restart while waiting for engineers to troubleshoot your wifi, only to then get told you need to restart to be reconnected to the tower, and then ultimately a factory default when they’ve exhausted their checklist?

Change your frequency band to 5GHz instead of automatic (2.4&5ghz) this can be done in the app under network, this fixed my slow speeds and unreliability 

T

I find it extremely interesting that my phone gets 130 mbps, but my 5g router is only getting 40. I called customer support and they said the tower is having issues and someone has been dispatched to fix it.  That was 3 days ago.  :/

P

I've just located this page and I need help.  I'm on my third gateway with a new one coming.  I get four bars on the gateway for connectivity but I'm lucky to get 1Mbps on a Speedtest.  Any ideas as to software or hardware settings to get WiFi that doesn't spool every few seconds while watching a streaming setvice?

C

I’m having similar issues right now and it’s very frustrating. I’m trying to play games that I never had issues playing before but all of a sudden there’s horrible ping and latency. I ran a speed test and my speeds are much slower than what they usually are. I’m disappointed you convinced me to switch from Spectrum to T-Mobile internet since it’s barely working. Any solutions or should I go back to Spectrum? 

C
Badge

So It seems a lot of people are having this same issue where their home internet goes down or almost out 1 to 2 hours every night regardless of daily use, or restarting system.. same for me typically 8pm ish to 930pm ish my home internet drops off nightly, and no one at T-Mobile seems to have an answer other then the same line by line response of (restarting, better placement, higher floors, ext.) Which if that was the issue it would be constantly and not just at around the same timeframe every day 

H

Clearly, I’m not alone.  I’ve observed internet speed slowdowns at night this past month.  Prior to that period the internet service was rock solid.  I’ve rebooted the gateway, checked the metrics which show excellent, and still during the night streaming tv becomes an issue.  This is unacceptable.  This is not a gateway issue but a network management issue.  I use speedtest and other speed test tools and my speeds have dropped below 1 Mbs and of course, my tv stops streaming. During the day, speed tests reflect from 150 to 200 Mbs.  Network load balancing and stablily seem to be an issue.  If this is not corrected soon, I’ll have no choice but to seek other services. 

J

Two tips:

  1. I have found that placing my gateway AWAY from windows and directly next to a wall closest to the tower gets a best signal. I was placing it by a window for months before I figured this out. To avoid interference, I also try to keep the gateway clear of any electrical wiring that may be inside the wall. 
  2. It is written in the “fine print” that network throttling down happens….(mine occurs every weeknight.) Here are the details:  https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/internet-service
C
Badge

Two tips:

  1. I have found that placing my gateway AWAY from windows and directly next to a wall closest to the tower gets a best signal. I was placing it by a window for months before I figured this out. To avoid interference, I also try to keep the gateway clear of any electrical wiring that may be inside the wall. 
  2. It is written in the “fine print” that network throttling down happens….(mine occurs every weeknight.) Here are the details:  https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/internet-service

Those shouldn't effect me at all..

1. I don't have it near a window, the tower is less than a mile from me

2. The plan I'm on prevents me from my data getting throttled (which is also listed in the link you provided)

Also, if it's the beginning of your billing cycle, your data usage has restarted so you shouldn't even get throttled if you aren't in specific plans. And with it only happening nightly, every night, there is an issue, special when it's only the home internet it's happening to and not my cell phones that aren't using the home internet (I alot of data on my phone, probably comparable to what I use on my home internet, but only that gets slowed down and not my phone

H

New T-Mobile customer here with the same issues, but also in the morning.

This is not an isolated issue. If you are reading this, this is the norm. No sense in me writing down the issues, since you can just scroll up and read.

W

I've read all these stories that share the same issue as I'm having and am wondering if I should even bother contacting support or if I'll just waste my time and they won't do anything to fix it.

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