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Home Internet, slow speed

  • 17 October 2022
  • 6 replies
  • 2169 views

I purchased T-Mobile Home Internet at the beginning of September along with a new phone and all the bells and whistles they were offering.  

After a few days, I started noticing problems and the speeds were terrible ….2mbps in the evenings…. you can imagine all the problems I  experience.  At random times during the day the speed can jump up to 80…. But speeds generally run between 10 and 14 sometimes 20 but then they drop like a rock to 2 or 3…. Evenings and nights are consistently very low..Even during the day, I am never sure when the speeds will be high enough to surf, stream, fill out forms etc…it took three tries just to get onto this site.

Sometimes I luck out during the day and the speed is up there for a few hours and I can get things done…. maybe watch a movie without issues or look for work uninterrupted……but I can’t go on this way. painfully slow.
 

 The first time I called, they said there was a problem on the tower and they had just fixed it and then last week when it became even worse  I called again and they said there’s a problem on the tower and they’re working on it…..They said it was congestion.


I have spent countless hours on the phone. I have moved the gateway to every corner in this small condo and then checked my speeds and I have been patient.  I’m sure they are working on this but I am starting to think that it may not be fixable.

Then I find out during high traffic times customers that have the unlimited Internet plans are deprioritized. I’m already running at 3 or 4 and they are deprioritizing me? I was told that to purchase a plan that would NOT deprioritize me would cost me about $300 a month.

I am working with tech-support and they are very pleasant…but nothing is  working very well.  I can only imagine what a mess it will be if I have to go back to cable. 


Is there some type of signal booster I can plug into the home Internet? I am not a technical person but I am just wondering if there are any other options for me...otherwise it’s back to cable and I’d rather just about do anything else in the world.

They are supposed to call me back in a few days and I just thought maybe you guys might have some ideas or support.

Any comments or tips would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

6 replies

iTinkeralot
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There are cellular signal boosters but a good one comes with a bit of investment. There are plenty of 4G LTE boosters but currently there do not appear to be good offerings for 5G NR boosters that also can handle the MIMO. The related technology for 5G does not appear to yet be available. The main thing to keep in mind is that a cellular booster/repeater can only do so much. If the signal source is too weak to be functional the booster will not be able to provide a significant improvement. 

There are also antenna solutions available that help improve cellular signal reception but again you have to have something stable and reasonable to work with to achieve the performance you need/want. Under reasonable conditions external antenna solutions can make a huge difference as they can improve the signal so signal quality is better and unwanted RF noise is prevented. 

If you are in an urban location where T-Mobile is expanding the 5G network there will be a higher density of towers and cells so it could be they are still “working out the bugs”. I am not a T-Mobile employee. I am just stating what I believe are plausible reasons for the condition. If there is truly congestion then the current 5G roll out in the area is probably NOT complete nor engineered properly at some point. The antennas may not be phased properly OR it could be you receive a signal in the location that is reflected and the reflection causes some distortion to the cellular signal. 

It would be good to know what frequency the signal your gateway receives. If it is the n41 or n71 and the cellular metrics also could help explain more about the actual reception you have. If you have either of the two newer gateways you will need to use the T-Mobile home internet mobile application to manage the gateway. There is more reporting in the mobile application which makes it the ONLY option actually. The web connection to the Arcadyan or the newer gateway they offer is pretty useless. Having the information may not do much for you in terms of “fixing” the problems but you will be better informed of what you are up against. T-Mobile support may be telling you this or that but it is difficult or near impossible to know for sure the truth of the matter. Only the engineers working on the local equipment really have some knowledge of what is taking place and some good idea how long it will take to get things operating as they should. 

Each and every location is a bit different so results for uses can vary considerably. Your proximity to a tower or towers is always a factor. If you are close to the signal source and the signal is strong, clean and stable with a good clear exposure it often works quite well. If there are trees, hills, buildings etc… plus the distance to the tower is greater; results even without congestion can be sketchy at times. 

My best guess, given I have insufficient data nor significant historical reference, is that there is work still being done in the area and the cells are still being worked on. When work was done here the behavior I observed was that things could be highly unpredictable for a week or so as improvements were performed. I am in a rural area so it is not as complicated as in an urban area where cell towers are in a more densely populated area and more cellular signals from different carriers. Sure the signals should not overlap but delivery for individual carriers does take time and work to optimize the delivery. 

If you have the PCI for the 4G and 5G signals you can possibly leverage CellMapper.net to locate the tower and have a good idea of how far away it is and in what direction. Some of the newer 5G cells are not in the CellMapper database but the 4G primary signal often is. The more information you have/know the better you can decide what you need to do. Push them to provide more clarity on the current cell deployment in the area. If they are doing upgrades and expanding the number of cells that could account for the unpredictable behavior. Of course it could be in part due to the prioritization chocking the delivery to a point that it is absurd and near useless. High speed internet delivery is not defined in single digits. Even low double digits is not acceptable in 2022. 

L
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Thank you so much for your response. It helps me to understand a little bit more about what is going on honestly, I didn’t understand a lot of what you said, but it is helpful. I think this is what they call …on a wing and a prayer.

iTinkeralot
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Userlevel 7
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It does not have to be a wind and a prayer. I am happy to offer you a leg up, so to speak, so you can know if the solution will work for you or not. I installed a 4G LTE booster for my sister as she is truly out in the sticks and even the 4G LTE signal needed to be boosted. The weBoost solution she bought was roughly $450 so not a lite investment. It helps but still from time to time there are still challenges with the signal. I have seen on Reddit and investigated the Waveform.com external antenna solutions and I know in the proper conditions the external antennas can help. It is important to get the proper antenna for it to perform the job so again the cost of even external antennas can be $300-500 or more. Cellular signal delivery can be a challenge in some places. Hard cable connections are less demanding and the ISP vendor commonly passes the installation costs along to the user. The new 5G cellular solutions, when done right, are pretty good actually. It is often more effort and in some cases frustration as the solution is tuned up. 

If you load the mobile application and do get the cellular metrics from the gateway reporting the chart below will help explain things. The bars on the LED display are very generic so do NOT really provide a clear picture of the actual operation of the gateway and the signal it is receiving.

Below is an RF chart that helps explain the metric values:

You can easily google the RSRP, RSRQ and SINR acronyms for the meaning of each. 

Signal receive power, Signal quality, and Signal to noise ratio. (noise = bad)

L

You can play around with all of the above and I doubt it will resolve your problem.  I have had the internet service for 24 months and the cell tower I connect is 1 mile and 4G only.  I have complained about slow speeds for over 12 months, speed as low as POINT 03 mbps  that is .03.  I have spent count less hours with all levels of support with no satisfactory results.  Tech support really does not understand the logic of the system and only read what is on there screen.  They also ask you to do things that will set you back  (such as press the reset button) hours getting the system back to where the system is usable.  Tech support will open a ticket with engineering and engineering say “no plans to upgrade the tower” or there is no problem.   You can not escalate the problem beyond that point.   From my view point there are 3 options.  1}  Create enough negative publicity to have T Mobile acknowledge and fix the problem 2} have government agency that regulates FCC be involved 3) a class action lawsuit is started and that gets T Mobile’s attention (this is not a quick solution and I need the internet service I have no other options.}

J

You can play around with all of the above and I doubt it will resolve your problem.  I have had the internet service for 24 months and the cell tower I connect is 1 mile and 4G only.  I have complained about slow speeds for over 12 months, speed as low as POINT 03 mbps  that is .03.  I have spent count less hours with all levels of support with no satisfactory results.  Tech support really does not understand the logic of the system and only read what is on there screen.  They also ask you to do things that will set you back  (such as press the reset button) hours getting the system back to where the system is usable.  Tech support will open a ticket with engineering and engineering say “no plans to upgrade the tower” or there is no problem.   You can not escalate the problem beyond that point.   From my view point there are 3 options.  1}  Create enough negative publicity to have T Mobile acknowledge and fix the problem 2} have government agency that regulates FCC be involved 3) a class action lawsuit is started and that gets T Mobile’s attention (this is not a quick solution and I need the internet service I have no other options.}

Best answer yet. I was getting one 100 Mbps the first few months, now it's been 1.5 for 4 weeks. Web pages even buffer. 3 times with support on the phone with no increase in speed. They say it's a tower issue, but when I disconnect the WiFi, my TMobile 5g phone gets 35 Mbps, so I know it's not a tower issue. They must be throttling the gateway.

P
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

You can play around with all of the above and I doubt it will resolve your problem.  I have had the internet service for 24 months and the cell tower I connect is 1 mile and 4G only.  I have complained about slow speeds for over 12 months, speed as low as POINT 03 mbps  that is .03.  I have spent count less hours with all levels of support with no satisfactory results.  Tech support really does not understand the logic of the system and only read what is on there screen.  They also ask you to do things that will set you back  (such as press the reset button) hours getting the system back to where the system is usable.  Tech support will open a ticket with engineering and engineering say “no plans to upgrade the tower” or there is no problem.   You can not escalate the problem beyond that point.   From my view point there are 3 options.  1}  Create enough negative publicity to have T Mobile acknowledge and fix the problem 2} have government agency that regulates FCC be involved 3) a class action lawsuit is started and that gets T Mobile’s attention (this is not a quick solution and I need the internet service I have no other options.}

Best answer yet. I was getting one 100 Mbps the first few months, now it's been 1.5 for 4 weeks. Web pages even buffer. 3 times with support on the phone with no increase in speed. They say it's a tower issue, but when I disconnect the WiFi, my TMobile 5g phone gets 35 Mbps, so I know it's not a tower issue. They must be throttling the gateway.

 

It’s a problem with the firmware.  Are you on the Arcadia gateway with firmware 1.00.18?  Several posts about 1.00.16 being fine and then once 1.00.18 is applied, it is stuck on LTE only and range from 1-10mbps.

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