T-mobile 5g home internet forcing to tower with no data issues/changing towers/bands

There is one other option you might try and that is call the geek squad and see If they can help you with your problem. I’m not saying they can but It’s worth a try to call them.

My silver trashcan has strarted doing this within the last 4 days. Before that it was fine..speeds werent great at all but at least it was consistent. My gateway is losing connection with the b12 tower every 20 minutes..sometiems connects to b71 but it soon drops from that. Tmobile support says there is nothing wrong with my connection tho? This is such a joke im tempted to cancel and send them back their “300 dollar” gateway in pieces. I put a large fan by it to keep it cool ill update my post if i stop experiencing problems because it does get rathe hot..not so hot that i couldnt hold my hand on it obviously but it feels like the air coming from my pcs cpu

ah well i typed a whole update and accidently closed it before posting lol….. well turns out the no cellular connection was something with t-mobile networks and thousands of people had issues it seems for days between july 15th -july 19th or so this is just a rough estimate from some posts i read it seemed very widespread and somewhat random 2 people could be in the same house with t-mobile service and 1 would work and 1 would get no service read alot of reports from probably 10 different states seemed mostly the central us and east cost that i noticed many people said it had been days since they had gotten a cellular connection

anyways the device is still working as bad as ever however it has been on the b26 band since it came back online and 1-4 mbps speeds primary only no secondary this tower has the weakest signal of the 3 i connected to in the past but it is somehow the most stable and usable connection of the 3 towers-still it is not acceptable

i have been using my visible wireless cell phone unlimited hotspot thats supposed to be capped at 5mbps i only get 1-2 mbps during really peak times with this but sometimes 20-30mbps at night. and for a 50$ phone and 40$ a month its been really amazing for me although slow its consistent and they only said it was 5mbps and i get that usually so its very acceptable.

@wootken thanks for sharing its nice to hear things are working out a bit better  for you i also watched nater tater lol and a few others before my device even arrived i had a computer fan i wired to a usb so i could use a cell phone charger or any usb port and was  ready just incase and idk i spent so many hours moving this thing all over stacking up totes and boxes to try and try different heights it was so ridiculous but i was very excited at the possibility of unlimited high speed internet i wouldnt be surprised if i spent 30 hours over 5-6 days sometimes i would be messing with this thing for hours and hours it seemed like it just never really made much difference for my connection i really want to take it apart because i think it would be cooler and could move the antennas myself i think any device like this should come with a external antenna option at least and really it should be included so you can move it around easier and not have the whole device up in your attick you could just have a antenna ran up there makes alot more since to me and i would say whoever came up with this device decided to shove everything they can think of in it without really any thought of how it will work properly and the ease of use.

my device came with .178 firmware i actually just disable the ssid except for ssid5 for 5g so im not sure if lowering the broadcast power would help i will try it though ive also tried disabling all of them and just using a Ethernet cable i didnt get any improvements in the past and i actually got worse tests somehow through the ethernet than the wifi maybe this is a sign of a faulty device although its never consistent with anything so its hard to say it might of just switched towers or something and thats why i was geting slower speeds for the test it does seem to be sensitive with interference from routers.

i dont actually have a t-mobile cell phone plan just the home internet so its kind of hard for me to judge what the cell service is like other than i have a boost mobile phone that used to be a offshoot of sprint but since t-mobile and sprint merged its been absolutely horrific service especially the data so it seems to coincide it also comes up as t-mobile ip on speedtest now as soon as this happend it was like a switch flipped and speeds dropped by well 50x because now im lucky to get 1mbps lol and was getting 50mbps regularly before this switch so its a t-mobile issue for sure also i see tons of reports about people who were on sprint as soon as they got there new sim card it basically wasnt a functional service anymore.

anyways idk what else to say about all this i have to go out of town so i didnt want to set up a replacement or return i really cant decide if i will keep the service any longer 50-60$ a month is alot if your not getting the service your paying for im hoping the towers were down because they were doing work or updates and it will be better soon but yea that feels like a pipe dream at this point and deep down dont see it working out t-mobile has some serious problems with there network and software/firmware it seems and the fact that they are forcing everything through ipv6 is probably going to be a issue forever if they dont come up with something way better than they are doing now.

okay so since moving my gateway to the highest spot i could place it in my home and setting a floor fan blowing right at it. I havnt had it drop in over 2 hours now. The silver 5g gateway seems super finicky to where you face it. You can cut your connection in half just by turning the gateway 10 degrees an either direction...i never had this problem with that old white rectangular gateway

@blue240sx44

So just to update-I purchased a external router and shut off all the wifi on the t-mobile router and just ran the ethernet to the external router and used that for wifi i dont get any of the sent errors anymore that i was getting when using the wifi on the t-mobile router on the statistics section-still no internet during the day

How on earth did you disable the wifi router portion of the gateway? There’s no option for that in the web ui…

Edit: Never mind, I’m an idiot LOL

update-well today i get no primary or secondary connection i think this thing might of burnt itself out or something it does turn on fine and does everything else like connect to wifi devices but no actually connection to a tower  i noticed even with the fan this thing was pumping out hot air non stop in a 75 degree or less environment.

also i got a new wifi 6 capable pcie card  so i turned on the ssid 1 5 9 all enabled the way it comes stock normally i had these disabled except for ssid5 and i use a Ethernet to a different router for wifi on the unit and idk this seemed to cause even more heat or the device just was always broken and finally broke all the way im not really sure.

normally the device is up pretty high so i dont really touch it or mess with it.-it seems that the fan was not helping as much as i thought and i really think these devices have some major issues i feel like my 5g gateway was at least 100-130 degrees on the outside when i unplugged it to try and reset and it felt like a full on car heater maxed out coming out of the fan.

i did do 2 factory resets left it unplugged and off for awhile nothing has helped its starting to seem like the nokia 5 g gateway is a big part of everyone's problem and the fact that everyone seems to need a fan to cool this device is a serious red flag to me i think they need to recall all these units-obviously my opinion doesnt matter though lol and having to buy fans to rig up to your device is totally acceptable ……..

anyways idk if i even want to get a replacement anymore it seems like most people dont actually ever get these things to work very well out of the box without having to put fans on it 

i was going to goto the store right away but its farther away then i expected and apparently is appointment only according to the website so thats promising. 

also it did storm bad yesterday/last night so it is possible that all 3 towers that ive been connecting to have issues or something althougth i was using the device for about an hour around midnight-1 am or so and it was working at that time i did notice it was switching between towers/bands alot more yesterday normally it kind of stays on w/e its connected to it was switching from b71 to b26 to b66/n71 

i have looked up the locations of all the towers thats how i know that each band is coming from a different tower you can find the towers on cell mapper and see if the EARFCN number matches any of them or thats what i did maybe im way off.

anyways im to annoyed and frustrated to call right now im not sure i could be very nice and dont know if i even want to continue this honestly i feel like im the one who should be getting paid for this not me paying them its been miserable so far. maybe ill call in a hour or 2 or tomorrow since i dont want to be stuck paying for a broken device or something.

yeah i do think i cook mine. it runn hotter the normal and wont connect to a second tower.

 Before reading, know that I consider T-mobile a saving grace for the location I’m in.  Was able to get rid of highly reviewed, costly, unlimited? only throttled to 1mbs after 10GB, satellite provider after more than 2yrs, even before doing all the following tweaks.  Thank you T-mobile. Everything that follows was done with a wired inline wireless router for wifi, following the gateway & T-mobile wifi not needed.

  Been through this myself. Had to put the gateway in the attic (very hot in summer) to get a fair signal. Found the (Nater Tater) YouTube videos & followed his instructions (I think) for disabling the wifi settings, then still added the fan.  The fan helped a bunch, but still hot to the touch.  Even though a page on the app said the wifi was disabled, on the network page still showed 100% transmission power.  I lowered that on both the 2 & 5ghz to the lowest at 12%, what looks to be the higher 5g still shows 100% but is not accessible to lower. (Firmware ver. ending in .178) I can now hold the trash can in a bare hand without feeling blisters will develop.  The bands no longer dropout (by design they do, for heat protection of device).  

  Before I bore with all the small stuff - If you are going to try Tech support, the first thing they will want you to do (if they can’t connect to gateway remotely) is a total power down & wait (hard reset) process, of the gateway.  My suggestion would be to do this before hand, at what you suspect would be the least congested time of day.  If its going to work, it should update firmware, if needed. If doing this during a congested time of day chances of timing out before update (or patience) completes are most probable.  If you still need tech support, I would call during your local area working hours & request of the robot operator, a call back (more likely to get someone within a hundred miles or so of you).  Being an Okie, with a low baud rate, can lead to confusion for all parties, whether it be a Millennial, New Yorker or Hindu. In my case tech support couldn’t connect remotely & immediately wanted to send a replacement gateway, I declined, knowing it worked well most of the time, & would search for overheating solutions on my own.  If you do a hard reset & it never connects, I would go with a replacement request/offer.  Firmware Version also seems to make a big difference in which app will allow gateway control.  The original firmware on mine, the mobile app had all the control of reboot & setting changes.  The .178 firmware seemed to swap control more to the desktop in Windows, while the mobile app lost control of reboot ability.    

  In my situation, home location is the biggest factor, limiting speed to about 40mbs at best, then network congestion, knocking speed to less than 1mbs (sometimes a forced speedtest server change will make an improvement - improves speedtest app only) other times, if slow enough that Netflix pixelates, a gateway reboot can help. 

  Turning off cellphone wifi calling & mobile data improved internet interruptions & call quality.  Downgrading 5g phones back to 4g made cell call reception better (telling me the gateway is locked in to 4g lte).  The same 4g phones that get speed tests of 40mbs at home, get at times, over 200mbs downtown, about 3 miles from home.

  I must go search for new routing system to replace the high dollar router that crapped out yesterday after 10 months use.    Good Luck, wootken 

update-so i really have not hardly been using this maybe every 2 days i check and see if i got any new connections or what band/towers its connecting to. almost always the same b71 with no secondary and basically this connection does not even work to load a webpage 99% of the time

Today i have connected to a new band/tower primary b26 

RSRP-115 dBm

SNR1 dB

RSRQ-14 dB

RSSI-87 dBm

no secondary lol as you can see these numbers are not fantastic and only gets speeds around 3-5 mbps i looked up the tower and its a sprint tower about a half a mile away.

So the odd this is even with this poor connection the web browsing is way more snappy no weird 2-10 seconds after you click on things something happens works like a proper connection ping is also 60-100 rather than 800-10000. i really wonder if this is because its a sprint tower lol

I wonder if you have to connect to primary and secondary bands on the same tower because there is 100% a 3 bar 5g band n71 that is a strong signal than this that this device just refuses to connect to regularly im not sure if its firmware or what but i just cant seem to get a secondary band for more than 1 day a week during the night hours.

i also noticed there is a huge cell phone tower i can see from the road that seems to be newer and less than a half a mile away i cant find it listed anywere to see what carriers are on it im really hoping i can get service through this tower soon.

So i guess its hopeful that i connected to a new tower and it works ok for web browsing and stuff so far cloudflare warp works and  phontonvpn seemed to have no trouble going through this tower not that i tried on the others though as i im just trying them out the last few days.

I have the same issues - worked fine for a few months this year, but the last 2 months have been horrible (new Nokia 5G gateway) also my phones when in 5G will lose connectivity as well (its not the box).  Everyone should file an FCC Complaint.   Here is the URL:  https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/

I got a $45 5G antenna on amazon. There are varieties of sellers