My Primary Signal is 4 bars / B66 and my Secondary Signal is 3 bars / n71. My download speeds are less than 100 Mbps. Does that mean I’m operating over 4G LTE instead of 5G?
N71 is 5G
I have 75 mps down on the gateway which lately only has B41 primary and no secondary., Turning the wifi off on my phone it connects to 5G and the download speed is into 200 mps range. So, I don’t know why the speed is different between the phone on 5G and the gateway as iboth are only connecting to B41.
Note: The primary signal will be for your 4G control connection. The secondary signal id for your data and will be 5G if it is available. If your secondary signal Band is “n41”, then you are on 5G.
I found that I got a better 5G connection when I configured…
Network… Wi-Fi Networks… 5GHz… Channel Bandwidth: 80MHz
instead of Auto.
Connected to b41 on the gateway, primary signal. Very rarely do I have secondary which is n71,n41. Why does my phone connect to 5g when I shut wifi off but not the gateway?
Note: The primary signal will be for your 4G control connection. The secondary signal id for your data and will be 5G if it is available. If your secondary signal Band is “n41”, then you are on 5G.
T-Mobile uses several 5G bands. In my area the n71 600 Mhz band is used. The n41 band obtained in the Sprint merger is being deployed in areas where T-Mobile does not have 600 Mhz coverage
- Frequencies that can provide 5G:
- Band n71 (600 MHz)
- Band n41 (2.5 GHz)
- Band n260 (39 GHz)
- Band n261 (28 GHz)
- With 5G, high amounts of data can be transmitted more efficiently than 4G LTE.
- One of the ways T-Mobile is rapidly deploying 5G is integrating mid-band 2.5 GHz spectrum from Sprint.
Note: The primary signal will be for your 4G control connection. The secondary signal id for your data and will be 5G if it is available. If your secondary signal Band is “n41”, then you are on 5G.
This is good to know. My secondary signal is band n71. Is that 5G as well? Does this also mean that I should focus on getting better reception on my secondary signal to improve speeds?
Note: The primary signal will be for your 4G control connection. The secondary signal id for your data and will be 5G if it is available. If your secondary signal Band is “n41”, then you are on 5G.
I have to add that there was some upgrade as my phone now picks up 5G after the new transmitters but the gateway performance is the same as before.
Yeah, I’m ok with the speeds but they are nowhere what I was promised. They put new transmitters up on the tower a few weeks ago so I anticipated an upgrade but nothing so far. It’s better than my cable which is always around 25 mps despite their ads that say 200 mps. I still can’t figure out why I’m getting 3-4 bars when I’m line of site less than a mile and I’ve tried moving the gateway around in different spots.
I don’t have any Wi-Fi 6 devices and am okay with Wi-Fi 5 speeds. I was able to get 200 Mbps on my previous cable modem and would be happy to get back there again. I would be happy just to have service that doesn’t cut out so often really. The 4G speeds are working fine until they completely drop out.
I understand older devices won’t be as fast but if I test with my new phone when connected to the gateway I get the 75-80 range. If I turn wifi off and connect to 5G it is faster but never close to the speeds you’re getting. The tower is line of sight on my front porch less than a mile away and only get 3-4 bars.
My signals are the reverse. My Primary Signal is 4 bars / B2 and my Secondary Signal is 5 bars / n71. Guess it helps to be less than a mile from a tower. I regularly get 400-600 Mbps download speed.
If your PC, laptop, or other device does not support Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax you likely will be limited to speeds in the 100-200 range with Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac or even less with older devices, even if the T-Mobile gateway is connected to 5G.
I have both a Wi-Fi 6 laptop and a Wi-Fi 5 laptop. I never get more than 200 Mbps download with the Wi-Fi 5 laptop, but 400-600 download is the norm with the Wi-Fi 6 laptop.
I’d like to know the answer to this, too. My primary is B41 and secondary, which I only have occasionally, is N71. Download speeds are usually around 75-80 mps. Sometimes the download speeds reach into the 200mps range but only for short periods.
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