T-Mobile Home Internet, 8-6-2023
My T-Mobile Home Internet is not reliable. I have had it for over 2 years now, same thing all the time, it cuts off. Before it would cut off and I would end up having to re-boot or power cycle my gateway. Now it cuts off and usually comes back up on it's own in about 2 minutes This is my second gateway, the first one the backup battery died). I have a log where I record (when I'm on my PC) the drops. If we are streaming video it does it and I don't write it down because it will usually come back on it's own. We have 2 T-Mobile cell phones, they do not work on the T-MHI wifi and they cut off on the internet also, at times, not necessarily at the same time as the Home Internet. According to Google Maps we are 3,290 ft. from the T-Mobile tower that I can see looking out my window by my desk. We on;y ever get 3 bars when the service is UP (originally we got 4 bars 2 years ago). Always been like that. I have a clear view of the tower. When it works it works good but it goes down and then up all hours of the day and night with no pattern. When I have called tech support I have realized there is no urgency to resolve a 2 year old problem (although I have called a lot of times). There is no follow up, usually I'm told "The engineers are aware of the problem with the tower/towers and are working on the issue. So, I don't call tech support unless all my actions don't work (power cycling and rebooting) and it has not come back up in 1-2 hours or my T-Mobile Home Internet, my 2 T-Mobile cell phones, my home phone number (which works VOIP is down and my home alarm is out of service because of no dial tone on my home phone line (VOIP). Before I had T-Mobile Home Internet I had a T-Mobile hot spot with the same issues. This past Friday evening about 8:00 PM (8-4-23) I noticed we had NO internet on the T-MHI or our cell phones (we had phone service all along). So no TV, home phone, no alarm (that works on Voip number), etc. I woke up at about 2:30 AM and checked my PC and I had service but the gateway only had 2 bars which means I’m not working on the tower 3,290 ft. from me but a tower 1.6 miles in the opposite direction. I did a speed test on my cell phone and it was 1.9 Mbps down and 2.1 Mbps up! Later, at 2:45 PM when the service was back up it was 432 Mbps down and 8.3 Mbps up (I had 3 bars on the gateway on this test). Calling the T-Mobile Help Line is like herding cats, especially if I get a foreign agent. The agents located in the U.S. are good but they can’t do anything. They look at my area towers, say there is an issue, and their engineers are aware of it or working on it. Now when my service drops it usually comes back up on it’s own within 2 minutes. The top of the gateway will have the T-Mobile symbol lit up and off and on then a circle with an X in it then in a few seconds the 3 bars are lit up and my PC or devices working wifi behind the gateway will restore. This is how it does foe the last 3 months, previously it would go down hard and I would have to re-boot/power cycle the gateway and wait 5-15 minute for it to come back up if I was lucky. I have ordered a fan for my gateway after reading on this forum and youtube that a fan can help. I may try contacting the FCC with a complaints like others have done but I don’t see T-Mobile resolving their issue because it looks like a lot of their customers have the same issue. When my Home Internet works it works good but the reliability is bad. Any suggestions?
