We've had TMobile Home Internet for several months, and it's been rock solid from day one.
Until the last 24 hours.
Every 10-30 minutes or so, our devices get 'Connected, No Internet', and the only way to fix it is to power cycle the gray trash can (as we call the modem).
Very confused, as it's location hasn't changed since initial setup, nor have any of its settings.
Any help would be appreciated.
Best answer by BlueSurf
View originalTry this. Go to the T-Mobile Internet App on your phone. Tap on Devices at the bottom. Find the connected device that is unable to connect to the internet. If it is not connected, tap on that device. Tap the button to connect.
I am also having this issue. Been with T-Mobile almost 10 years. May be leaving the company because of this. My internet was fine a month ago. One month later it won’t work. Did all troubleshooting. Submitted ticket. New router. New sim. Still didn’t work. Repeated the same steps. Three new routers. None work. Now submitting new ticket.
If T-Mobile GW isn’t working for you, there could be chances of technical issue from T-Mobile side or on technical issue on GW itself, you can have go through this guide to fix the issue.
I have the same issues here in Vero Beach Florida. My gateway reports a “good” signal (3bars) consistently, but the actual internet feed comes and goes, verified by a speed test. Very frustrating. I’ve called support multiple times and they say it’s a tower issue and that it’s bring worked on. Have heard them say this for the last year now. This is not a gateway hardware or software issue - it’s a tower problem. Restarting the can or updating software doesn’t address the issue.
I have the same issues here in Vero Beach Florida. My gateway reports a “good” signal (3bars) consistently, but the actual internet feed comes and goes, verified by a speed test. Very frustrating. I’ve called support multiple times and they say it’s a tower issue and that it’s bring worked on. Have heard them say this for the last year now.
Having constant drops of home internet for last week in Kent WA. When was working good I was getting over 400 down and 80 up on home internet and over 600 down and close to 100 up speed on iPhone 14pro max .
Today got a replacement of the modem and same thing happened after 15 min of normal working order. Since I connected the new modem about 5 hours ago had to restart it 3 times. Not sure what else to do except of getting a different company and forgetting T-Mobile.
This issue has nothing to do with the router or any devices. I know this because I used (still do as secondary) a T-Mobile MVNO and started having this exact issue a few months ago, and it's happening more frequently now. I just got Home Internet a couple weeks ago... same issue popped up. Everything looks connected, but no Internet.
The only thing that seemed to fix it with the MVNO was to have them request a line reset with T-Mobile. Love the speed when it works but this is insane that this issue is happening.
This has happened to me as well. I have the Nokia trashcan. At first I had two bars of signal and nothing would work, even though my address is listed as “available” for 5G home internet.
After a month of putzing with it and wasting time with tech support, I bought a 2x2 external antenna, cracked the case, and hooked it up (yea T-Mobile, I said it. F**k you!), pointed it at the nearest tower…..and got 200mb/s down with three bars of signal. It was glorious! It worked like that for three months. Then one day I noticed the speed dropped to 50mb/s. A month after that I was at 1mb/s, still with three bars. And there is has stayed for three months.
So tonight I setup a Netgear LM1200 hotspot with the 50gb dataplan. I put it right next to the trashcan, no external antenna or anything. And got 20 - 30 mb/s down with 2 - 3 bars of signal.
Two hours on the phone beating my head against the wall with tech support later, they opened a ticket “for engineering”. The rep had no idea what to put in the ticket and kept referring to “signal problems”. I told her multiple times there are no signal problems. This device is getting throttled somewhere on the T-mobile network.
This company is clueless on this issue. The reps won’t even acknowledge that it is happening. I’ll wait about a week for no one to call me back with an update and then I’ll probably go buy a grandfathered unlimited hotspot AT&T sim card and go on down the road.
Unlimited 5G home internet was a nice idea, but T-mobile as a company is just too incompetent to pull it off. And that’s a shame.
I’ve been having trouble with my phone service and internet since January and nothing has changed except my bill is outrageous. I can’t use it but like I told you my neighbor has been hacking my phone and TV and now I have home internet and that’s being hacked. I have paid over 2000 dollars in the last 8 months and I can’t use it but he can and like I said when I turn his power off everything works great but you don’t have anyone checking it out so that tells me it’s legal to hack then pay for your service but if you kick the then the police will arrest me what a great system. I can’t believe I paid for nothing all this time. I feel that I’ve been let down by t-mobile and I thought that this was going to be a good place to get help but all I got was more lies and not any help getting matters taken care of no refunds. I’m just tired of all of this and I see I have to do this on my own and I don’t know what to say
Well, I’m checking out.
It turns out, T-Mobile will not refund the monthly autopay once you’re past the 90-day mark. And, while there is a “suspend” option on the account, that would cost me $10 a month for no service at all. I might as well take a ten dollar bill and put it in the shredder once a month.
Given the numerous topics on this community forum reporting loss of internet access, the picture is becoming clearer. If I had to guess, I’d say T-Mobile oversold the internet service and found themselves in a bind when they discovered they had insufficient capacity. Not wanting to hurt their mobile phone business, they have had no choice but to cut off their internet gateway customers. “Problems associated with tower work in your area” is merely a fabricated excuse in most cases.
In my case, a so-called engineer’s report traced my service interruption to being in a poor coverage area. Not only is this nonsensical (because I get three bars on the gateway device and the service worked great for ten months), it also makes it clear that they have no intention of fixing the problem. Never mind that I was told at the time of signup that I was in range of their cell towers and that my projected usage (2-person household, primarily video streaming and online shopping) was exactly the kind of traffic for which the system was designed.
It’s been a disappointing experience. T-Mobile can certainly expect that I will not be recommending any of their products to anyone. Also, I’m sure the FCC will be interested in their questionable practices.
Good luck, folks.
“The 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands you mentioned are wireless frequencies used to connect your devices to the gateway. They have nothing to do with how the gateway communicates with the cell towers (usually 5G cellular or LTE)”
Yes. They are different but that didn’t stop two T-Mobile Tech people from “assuring” me that changing the wifi from 5Ghz to 2.4Ghz would solve me problem. I did. It didn’t! It is possible that, for us, the problem was an influx of tourists in the area taking all the 5G bandwidth. The real problem is that the Nokia “trashcan” doesn’t have the ability to turn off 5G and only connect LTE. In my opinion it should be able to do this automatically if it detects a poor 5G signal. At the **very** least there should be a manual way for T-Mobile (or the end user) to do this. I think I would have given the service another shot if there was a way to do this. As it is, Dad has Verizon now and the “trashcan” is winging it’s way back to Texas
The 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands you mentioned are wireless frequencies used to connect your devices to the gateway. They have nothing to do with how the gateway communicates with the cell towers (usually 5G cellular or LTE). Likewise, the WPA settings you mention are just the various methods of encrypting communications between your devices and the gateway via your wifi network. The cell tower is not involved with the WPA communications that occur between your devices and the gateway. The gateway has its own set of security and encryption protocols used to communicate with cell towers, and you can not change that via any settings that you can make via the T-Mobile app or the web UI.
That said, the settings you are describing can indeed affect the speed and security of the wireless communications between your devices and the gateway, and that can affect the overall internet speeds you see on your various device.
We've had TMobile Home Internet for several months, and it's been rock solid from day one.
Until the last 24 hours.
Every 10-30 minutes or so, our devices get 'Connected, No Internet', and the only way to fix it is to power cycle the gray trash can (as we call the modem).
Very confused, as it's location hasn't changed since initial setup, nor have any of its settings.
Any help would be appreciated.
The posts about resetting to factory settings are incorrect!!! This is NOT a fix. After 6 weeks and 10 hrs with Advanced Tech Support dept (unable to help) I have solved the problem. As background I had flawless fast service for 2 months, then it was terrible. I'm 600ft from my 5G tower in a major metropolitan city too.
Here's the solution(s)... use the T-Mo Home Internet app. Switch to 5ghz from the standard 2.4ghz if you're close to your tower. 2.4ghz is for longer broadcast distances. We switched and service definetely got better but was still unacceptable. The real thing that worked was (on the same page of the App) select WAP/WAP2 from the default WAP2/WAP3 encryption. Our cell tower must have had a software update that is not prioritizing WAP2/WAP3 encryption IP traffic. I took the entire router to my boat in another city/state (that's not even available for TMo Home Internet) and with the original settings it was passing 240MB down with 31ms ping. This is how I knew it was a problem from my local tower. Roll back the encryption standard and your service will come back. I'm getting about 44mb down now but the ping is about 200-300ms.
I’m having the same problem with my 90 year-old Dad’s internet. It was good (20 mps) when I first got it for him last October. Since the beginning of July it’s been terrible. Like, 0.15 mps terrible. It’s so bad that I can’t even bring up a webpage to run a speed test. I’ve called T-Mobile tech support 4 times and I’m getting really tired of hearing their script. No internet means my Dad (who lives alone) has no TV and no phone. That’s right, the connection is so bad VOIP doesn’t even work.
The Nokia unit is showing 4 bars and the tower is less than a mile away. I think I know what the problem is but there doesn’t seem to be any way to correct it. The 5G signal is “poor” but the LTE signal is “excellent”. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn off connection to the poor 5G signal. I had even considered asking for a 4G router instead but I’m just going to get rid of the service. Why should I spend all my time trouble-shooting their lousy service? Fios is coming on Thursday and Dad is on a hotspot borrowed fomo the Library until then. I really wanted to like T-Mobile Home Internet and I did at first. Now, however, I hate it and I doubt I will *ever* try it again - even they get their act together
Thanks to all those posting here, proving that my issue is far from unique and isolated. About 40 days into this failure mode, I am still without internet service via my T-Mobile gateway.
After many, many frustrating phone conversations with “tech support,” I’m on my third device -- this time the Arcadyan model. The problem remains the same: “good” connection with T-Mobile’s cellular network but no internet service… not even a blip... this after about ten months of what I consider stellar internet access, given the paucity of options in my area.
To Jay from Georgia: Thanks for your post, but I sincerely doubt you spoke to an actual engineer. T-Mobile has erected impenetrable firewalls to prevent that from happening. Instead, you most likely spoke to one of their offshore “tech” representatives, who can do little more than perform scripted procedures and file trouble tickets. One of the last reps I spoke to claimed he was the last stop on my journey to a solution, promised to stay on top of it, and would get back to me with updates. I haven’t heard from him in a couple of weeks.
Still, the thought of reconnecting with my local cable company is so odious to me, that I am willing to wait. As long as I keep getting credited (for my autopays) for outage days/weeks/months, I have nothing to lose. Reports here are encouraging in that some users seem to regain service after some indeterminate period. In the meantime, I can limp along with my slow, expensive, rock-solid DSL service.
I will update as I can.
Well you did the basic to get your service back to normal. Since that didn’t help it can very well be a hardware issue. Overheating has caused problems. I use a cooling fan and it has been just great.
Your next step is Tech Support 844.275.9310, tell them everything you did to try to fix your Gateway.
They can do stuff remotely which may turn out to be a new replacement. Good luck.
Just fyi I was rock solid first few months too and same issues it got progressively worse week over week and now can't get on at all. I think they are adding more people than they can accommodate. Why else would I suddenly not be able to use it when it was great in the beginning but also gets worse every week. (yes at peak hours and weekends)
I'm desperately trying not to go back to spectrum but it's looking like that will need to happen.
I got a replacement and it is the same issue!
I am having the same problem with the Nokia gateway. It does not appear to have anything to do with the tower. Most of my connected devices remain functioning at high speeds while others show “no internet connection”. For instance, My OOMA, iPhone and wife’s laptop will stay connected to the gateway but show no internet connection. Simultaneously my iPad and laptop are working just fine at nice high data speeds. The devices loosing internet are largely random, though some tend to loose internet more frequently. A total reset and numerous reboots and a software update have not solved the problem.
I am hoping they will send me another gateway, preferably not the Nokia since others seem to be having the same problem. My service was perfect for the first 6 months, the last two have been miserable.
My connection has stabilized somewhat. Don’t lose Internet anymore, knock on Wood, and can live with T-Mobile. Morning downloads 100 plus, busy afternoons and evenings, 35-45 MBS. My uploads speeds have always been bad, 2-4 MBS. I’m happy for now, sure beats AT&T DSL. Good Luck..
I have had the same problem in Atlanta of “connected without internet.” Had days of good service, followed by great instability of the internet connection. Tower signal remained constant. Six calls to tech support, replacement of the gateway device, etc.
Finally, I spoke with an engineer (opened a trouble ticket) and a supervisor re-booted my virtual gateway on the T-mobile side (his explanation). Service has been restored and running as anticipated.
The solution is only 24 hours old (August 16, 2022), so anything can still happen. Still awaiting a response to the trouble ticket opened to understand root cause for the problem and why T-Mobile was unaware of this problem and unable to monitor/log my internet service.
Will wait a day or two. If still stable, will call T-Mobile Customer support and ask for a credit for service not delivered.
+8
So I would argue for those focused upon the cellular connection and no internet that it will be helpful to know if you are connected to the same cell source or if it has had a handoff. You will not know unless you keep up with the PCI, physical cell identifier. There is some buffering of data to try to deal with handoffs but there is routing as well. If the routing does not update then your outside NAT address may not be seeing the return of the routed traffic so you get the behavior. It could be a routing issue with the gateway software. Without some debugging the T-Mobile engineers can’t see what is going on. If the gateway is rebooted then the ARP table and routing table would be flushed and the gateway should be reconnected to the routers that handle the traffic on the T-Mobile network.
Replies that offer suggestions for a better signal from the cell tower are completely missing the point of this discussion.
I, too, have lost internet connectivity after about ten months of what I would call “stellar” performance with my T-Mobile internet gateway. (I have the grey Nokia device.) I’m not talking about reduced speed or an intermittent connection. I’m talking someone-flipped-a-switch-or-tripped-over-a-wire dead-as-a-doornail no internet connection. I’m still connected to the tower antennas and, therefore, as far as I can tell, to the T-Mobile cellular network. I say stellar because I was getting download speeds between 30 and 50 Mbps with occasional stretches in the 100 Mbps range. I’m on my backup ADSL service right now, which tops out at 7 Mbps down and which is the main reason I am able to participate here.
Dealing with T-Mobile tech support out of India (my guess) has been utterly frustrating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accommodated their “script” -- performing reboots, factory resets, SIM card reseatings, and readback of IMEI and other numbers ad nauseum. They’ve replaced my gateway device, also to no avail. It is difficult enough to understand these so-called tech reps because English is clearly not their first language. It is even more difficult to get them to understand that, after several hour-plus sessions on the phone playing their diagnostics game, the problem is not with customer premises equipment or setup. The gateway device continues to show connection to the cell network, and its router functions are all OK.
At the moment, I am waiting for a callback with an “engineering” status report. Apparently, there have been some equipment upgrades that might have caused this problem. But it’s been three weeks, folks. C’mon…
I love that at the end of each telephone tech support session I am asked, “Have I satisfactorily addressed your issue today?” or some such thing. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I may have to jump ship, but it will be a sad day. The T-Mobile internet service was my ticket to a happy day -- the day I cut my cable connection.
+8
K4VW - “The unit is in a window in my garage.” If the garage is hot; heat may be part of the problem and a fan may help. I seem to recall some of the users with heat issues reporting similar behavior so put a fan on it and exhaust heat.
If you can locate the GW with good exposure to the tower in a room with better air conditioning that might be better. Some gateways do have the heat issues. :-( A fan will NOT hurt. You might query the Community threads for heat or fan and find a quick response that gives you a line on the size and price. They are not expensive and can be had on Amazon or other sources online pretty easily.
+8
Some people get improved performance with the Arcadyan GW vs. the Nokia and others report results that are about the same. Users that have the Arcadyan and the Nokia have BOTH reported heat related issues. Nothing is perfect in this world. I have the Nokia and I would not trade it for the Arcadyan. I have been in service here with the Nokia since early January 2021 and had two flakey outages. Both were due to work being performed on the tower equipment. Upgrades and programming I suspect. After the second period it has been stable for the past 11 months. I prefer the Nokia and I am familiar with the interface and it has more configuration functionality than the Arcadyan GW. The Arcadyan firmware has been improved but I don’t know how much as I don’t have one to tinker with. If my download and upload speeds were less I would use an external antenna just to be able to locate the gateway so I could improve WIFI delivery over the house better. With 180 Mbs down and 40-60 Mbs uploads I don’t have the demand for the external antenna. If that changed in a negative way then I would probably give an external antenna more priority.
Thank you very much, bunch of great info. I did notice my N71 secondary has switched from PCI 320 to 359. I found the tower site #125290 SE of me. Have you tried external antenna? I know, I don’t want to do it either but would like to see what kind of improvement I got. Would like to try one of the new Gateways. Thanks again and I’ll keep working on it. Great support!
+8
K4VW - The PCI, physical cell identifier, is the identification for the cell that is the origination for the band. If the tower information in cellmapper.net has both the B2 & B66 LTE bands you might be sort of in the middle of the zone where your gateway tends to move back and forth between the two. They could be on different towers but without looking up the PCI information in cellmapper.net I could not say if both are on different towers or not. Use cellmapper.net to locate the 4G LTE cells via the PCI values. You also may be able to locate the 5G NR signals as well. CellMapper.net is roughly 80% accurate as the database is populated by users uploading info. With an account and using application software on an Android phone users can get their information to the servers and in the database and that helps everyone that tries to find cells. Not possible with an iPhone, an apple thing. If it is I have not seen any way yet. I have been reading the info on cellmapper.net and Android and Win10 mobile apps available but not for iOS. Using cellmapper.net is free and very helpful.
One thing you might try is to rotate the gateway say 5 degrees at a time and watch the signal metrics. The arrangement of the Nokia is such that there are multiple antennas in it which run vertical. I found if I point the back of my gateway, i.e. where the switch and Ethernet ports are, in toward me and have the front left, from the back orientation, facing toward the tower I can improve the 5G NR signal. I usually can get 3-4 dBm improvement on the 5G NR signal just by turning the gateway to improve the signal wash over the two antennas on the front side. I oriented mine to improve the 5G and ignore the drop on the 4G LTE signal. I don’t do much in the way of heavy uploads so the download speed on the 5G signal is where I have worked to improve the exposure. So, you can with a simple rotation of the gateway impact the signal metrics and improve your performance. You can use the chart to translate the metric values so you can dial it in. You might get it to hold 5G with a stronger, cleaner signal with just a simple spin on the gateway. I did have success with this.
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