Question

TMobile Internet and Buffering

  • 17 October 2022
  • 10 replies
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Just switched to TMobile internet. Streaming is horrible with some channels buffering every couple of minutes and others just not loading. This is supposed to be 5G. Is there anything I can do other than switch to another provider?


10 replies

Userlevel 7
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If you have the T-Mobile home internet mobile application on your phone you can check and confirm you have both the primary and secondary signals connecting. The primary will be 4G and the secondary will be 5G. In the application you should be able to also check the cellular metrics and get more information about how strong the signals are, the quality of the signals, and the amount of noise. If the signal is weak that would account for why the streaming is failing.

My internet is buffering real bad.

Userlevel 7
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If you are seeing excessive buffering it is probably due to low bandwidth. If the cellular source is busy or there is some problem that restricts bandwidth and service delivery buffering is going to happen. I suggest you run a speed test with say the Speedtest.net application and confirm the download and upload speeds you are experiencing. 

If you have one of the newer gateways from T-Mobile you will not be able to determine if the statistics are clean for transmit and receive other than look at what the client reports about the network connection. It might be related to errors or drops but more than likely it is due to tower congestion. A speed test can provide clues as to bandwidth to the client and latency as reported by the application for ping latency and also jitter. If latency is high and bandwidth is low more than likely there is throttling of the traffic due to load. T-Mobile might be doing work on the cell tower so that could be another avenue to investigate. My guess is heavy user load and bandwidth throttling. 

Userlevel 7
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If your gateway has not updated that might also be a factor. You should check and see the firmware revision on the gateway and determine the most recent firmware revision available for the gateway model you have. You cannot initiate the download yourself. If you do find the gateway has not updated and an update might help contact T-Mobile support and see if they can push an update to the gateway. 

Use the administrative access with the mobile application to determine the primary and secondary cellular signals are both connected and ALSO the advanced cellular metrics. Posting that information to the community conversation can help as others can provide feedback. If the RSRP and RSRQ and SINR  values are poor that will be a big clue. Also confirm the cellular frequency signals for the 4G LTE and the 5G NR identification. Look to see if the 5G is n71 or n41 and the RSRP as knowing the radio signal receive power will help.

If you have not spent some time moving the gateway about to improve the signal strength and quality for the cellular signaling then you also need to possibly investigate improving the location of the gateway with respect to the cellular signal. A poor or weak signal will lead to buffering so it is important to position the gateway so it can obtain the strongest and cleanest signal. In some cases/locations the improvement of the signal can be a challenge. Not all locations offer optimal service delivery.

I am getting a tremendous amount of buffering now. In addition, when I look at the website some of the time, it indicates that I am getting metering. I have checked more than once with your company, and metering is NOT PART OF MY PLAN! PLEASE FIX THE PROBLEM SO THAT I DON’T HAVE TO LOOK FOR ANOTHER COMPANY!

Recently, every time I’ve logged in, I’ve gotten a black box with the captions in it superimposed over the advertisement on the screen. I wouldn’t mind the advertisements as long as I got the program afterward instead of buffering during the commercials. Loews and some of the others. Fix it!

I have a new gateway and The buffering is still out of control!!

My buffering is out of control as well. I have reset the Gateway twice and moved it around. Any other ideas before I switchto another service?

I refused to go with T mobile Internet thankfully. I unfortunately have their phone service as of now and it’s horrible. We are paying 150.00 more than we did with Verizon prepaid and our service is so horrible we don’t even bother with our phones anymore. We will literally celebrate when our contract is up. 

It is IMPOSSIBLE to watch any BIG 10 basketball games with our T Mobil internet service.  The buffering and blurring of the TV makes it Impossible to read the score, and we will be leaving T Mobil after being loyal customers for 10 years.  The service works fine during the daytime, but after 6 PM in the evening lots of times we cannot even connect to SLING TV or NETFLIX.  What is wrong???

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