Question

5G home internet keeps dropping

J
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I’m having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line.  I’ve had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network.  When I say “drop the network,” I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it’s broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says “no network found.  (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.)  Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn’t prevent it from happening again.  Whatever is happening doesn’t seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won’t just disconnect randomly.  

 

To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn’t have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway’s wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.)  They’ve sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact).   I’ve noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it’s an issue with the device overheating.  However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting.  The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together.  Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the “heavy lifting” of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it?  I don’t have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I’m running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.   

 

Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?

264 replies

J
Userlevel 1
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I don’t know the answer to that. I spoke to probably 3-4 different technicians before we straightened it out. I was told at one point the new 5G gateway was essentially a dual antenna and could receive either a 4G LTE signal or 5G signal. I was also told the gateway looked for,  an attached to wherever it received the best signal. So you would assume if there wasn’t a good 5G signal it would grab a 4G signal.  In our case it didn’t work at all. It was my suggestion since we hadn’t returned the 4G LTE receiver to reactivate it and give it a try. The tech agreed and after we hooked it back up it worked fine so I stayed with the 4G LTE receiver and sent the 5G back. There seems to be 2 possibilities: 1) The new 5G gateways are not capable of receiving the 4G signal and 2) T-Mobile is putting the 5G gateways out in the market where towers are not yet broadcasting that signal. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for our experience.

M

I feel like I’ve been victimized by a bait and switch. We installed the T-Mobile Internet Gateway device a couple months back and had amazing speeds. 150-200 mbps. In the last week, it’s like we’ve been throttled down to the reality of our new device. Anywhere between 0 and 50 mbps, if we are lucky. Several times no more than 5mbps. And nothing has changed in my configuration whatsoever. A couple other people mentioned things were great “initially” only to later sink down to something abysmal with no clear reason why and no solution. Sigh.

J

We had the same issues with our 5G gateway device. We had only 2 bars which was supposed to be enough for a signal, however, when we had a signal our service was extremely slow and it was constantly dropping completely. We contacted customer support, went through all the troubleshooting with engineering (checking the signal, switching towers, moving the device around, etc). Finally, requested T-Mobile reactivate our previous device (the 4G LTE small white box).  Solved the problem instantly, strong signal, good speed, no drops, no problem streaming. After reactivating and connecting the 4G LTE Gateway the tech essentially admitted that the new 5G service is essentially a work in progress and isn’t up and running smoothly.  He said they are working on it and would contact us to upgrade our hardware to 5G when it was functioning properly in our area. Hope this is helpful.

 

I have all the same problems. Internet disconnects all the time.

R

I am having same issue critical “modem chip down”. It reboots itself every few minutes and lost internet connection. I’ve tried 3 different grey gateway and all doing the same. At this point, I  do not know what to do as they are not knowing how to solve this!

P

Mine drops daily 1-5 times and has consistently done so for 2 months now. I am on my third gateway. T-Mobile support has not found anything that prevents it but restarting always solves it. 

U
Userlevel 1

I was sent out the new black box . This has resolved my dropping issues. I was buffering for a while  losing 5g to 4g with it. I moved the box to a new location in my home. The new software show the signal from the tower with your gps location. I also gained a bar to good on connection with the new goods

 

also for anyone wanting a work around the keep connect box works great fro checking your connection then auto resetting your modem. You can find it on Amazon. I sent mine back hope i don’t need it again.

 

Knocking on wood….

E

I’m having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line.  I’ve had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network.  When I say “drop the network,” I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it’s broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says “no network found.  (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.)  Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn’t prevent it from happening again.  Whatever is happening doesn’t seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won’t just disconnect randomly.  

 

To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn’t have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway’s wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.)  They’ve sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact).   I’ve noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it’s an issue with the device overheating.  However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting.  The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together.  Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the “heavy lifting” of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it?  I don’t have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I’m running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.   

 

Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?

My Q-Link ZTE 5G phone is worthless. It can neither make nor receive calls within my home because of metal siding and the settings show it is connected to my router but still cannot make or receive a call. Completely unreliable.

J

Is this happening to anyone with a strong signal, or is it just weak signal folks? 

J

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last night with a very nice and seemingly honest tech person who basically told me that based on my location, the salesperson had no business selling me the 5G home internet service. I was getting two bars max, and speeds were all over the place--from around 40 Mbps all the way up to around 300 Mbps, but rarely. Very erratic. Then the whole connection would be lost after about an hour, and I’d have to unplug the device and plug it back in. Super frustrating. As it turns out, in my case the signal is just too weak, even though the tower is only about .7 miles away to the northwest and I am up on a hill. Pushing back a bit, I discovered from the tech person that upgrades are scheduled to come to the tower in my area in May/June. I’m guessing the salesperson figured I’d spend a few months trying to figure out the problem until the tower is upgraded; then everything would be okay. Anyway, I asked if I could get the 4G LTE device in the meantime, and she said they are no longer offering that. So, I asked if there was a way to adjust the settings of the device only to grab the 4G signal, and she said I could go to 192.168.12.1 and use the admin login credentials on the device tag and set it to 2.4 GHz and not 5 GHz. She did not seem sanguine that this would solve my problem, and I couldn’t even login to the device anyway, so I just gave up. They are temporarily suspending my account while I hang on to the device. The tech person said she would personally call me back when the tower is upgraded, and we can try again. We’ll see. I’d be gone and would never come back to T Mobile if it wasn’t for this nice, honest tech person. I wish I could remember her name. She needs a promotion.  

J

Could I make a recommendation to T Mobile as well? There are tons of videos on YouTube about how to take you 5G device apart and hot wire it with an external antenna. Why not just put an external antenna jack on the device and offer an external antenna package for additional cost to customers who have connection issues?

iTinkeralot
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T-Mobile keeps records of calls and usually will provide a ticket number. If you made another call they could look up the information based upon your account information as they record pretty much everything. 

That is good you reached a personable support person that really wanted to help out. I had a similar experience so I know there are some good ones and some that are just clueless. If you have the Arcadyan router vs. the Nokia the configuration options are very limited in the Arcadyan so support needs to ramp up on their game to target what they say to each customer. 

The problem is what to do in the interim for internet service if you want to stay with T-Mobile and avoid any sort of contract that ties you up. Sort of between a rock and a hard spot.

J

T-Mobile keeps records of calls and usually will provide a ticket number. If you made another call they could look up the information based upon your account information as they record pretty much everything. 

That is good you reached a personable support person that really wanted to help out. I had a similar experience so I know there are some good ones and some that are just clueless. If you have the Arcadyan router vs. the Nokia the configuration options are very limited in the Arcadyan so support needs to ramp up on their game to target what they say to each customer. 

The problem is what to do in the interim for internet service if you want to stay with T-Mobile and avoid any sort of contract that ties you up. Sort of between a rock and a hard spot.

Well, the tech support person said they’d personally call me back in May/June, so I can get their name then. If this works out, I will definitely take the time to make sure T Mobile knows who this person is. Anyway, I have the Arcadyan router. I couldn’t even get into the router to check the settings when I was on the phone with tech support, so I don’t know. I’m back to my old provider for the moment, but T Mobile just told me to hang on to the Arcadyan router without charge for a couple of months while they do tower upgrades. I’m fine with that. Right now my internet service with a different provider is absolutely terrible (16 Mbps download; <1 Mbps upload), so I don’t have a lot of options. According to my current provider, to get a line up to my house and take advantage of the blazing fast speeds, my portion of the cost would be around $5,000. Forget it. So, I was really banking on the T Mobile 5G home internet getting me up in the neighborhood of 40Mbps up and down. That would be totally fine for what I do. We stream a lot, though, so satellite is out. I guess I’ll just wait until summer and see if the tower upgrades solve our problems. 

iTinkeralot
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I have neighbors here that were on CenturyLink and it was horrible, unreliable service. I recommended T-Mobile to my neighbor across the street and now they are happy campers. We had no other good option here but the T-Mobile home internet solution. Hughes Net was out of the question and StarLink is too expensive. Not sure StarLink is all that great in the area anyway. 

Good Luck! 

G

I was having internet disconnects at least once a day. Purchased a WiFi reset device called Keep Connect. It pings Google I think on a regular basis and if it detects the internet is down it will power reset whatever is plugged into it. It will also email/text you every time it happens. For some strange reason I’ve only had it reset once in the last month since I installed it. Obviously its not a solution for the problem, but its a decent band aid. 

U
Userlevel 1

This is the new 5G modem router that solved my problem. I have been up and running for five straight days.

 

https://tmo.report/2021/10/exclusive-this-might-be-the-new-t-mobile-home-internet-gateway/

U
Userlevel 1

 

iTinkeralot
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Indeed that is the Arcadyan KVD21 T-Mobile 5G Home Internet New Gateway. If you want to know a bit more go to see Nater Tater on YouTube. 

Better? Time will tell. Right now it is missing many features but if it can hole a signal lock and not cook itself then that is a step in the right direction. 

U
Userlevel 1

No one wants to hear all the mumbo-jumbo they just wanna plug it in and have it work.

So many technical variables split between two towers all the things you’ve mentioned and others.

 

I don’t need any features I just need it to work I’ll check back in a month

 

U
Userlevel 1

Average speeds with 3 bars on 5g

iTinkeralot
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Yes I suppose not everyone cares for the geek side nor understands it. The speed at the time beats DSL connections by a long shot. Hopefully when they complete their tower buildout in the area it will stay stable. When it stays stable and has good bandwidth it is a nice solution. 

V

So I have the exact same issue and have seen many people complaining about this issue. That should rule out the tower or something in the area possibilities. 
    I did eventually unhook my google mesh and ran everything directly from the t mobile modem. It seems it is better. It used to reset 2-5 times per day. After disconnecting mesh system it seems to be down to once a day or less. Maybe once every couple days. Again, complete loss of connection when it drop. I did notice I didn’t get my improvement until I not only unhooked my mesh and my 600.00 hundred dollar signal booster but I disconnected them completely so they didn’t put out a signal. I think somehow whatever I’m/your running around the house with a signal effects it ? I know, doesn’t make sense. 
     It is way better. I don’t know what else to do? Have you found any solutions… I see this post is 9 months old…

J

Ugh, I’m soooo aggravated. Days and days of my signal dropping completely or being left with 2 or 3 bars on the gateway. I’ve tried everything, including turning everything on and off and restarting and moving it all around. Why suddenly, after 5 months of everything being great is this service so terrible??? 

D

I am having the same disconnect problem. I have called support 8 times, and they have sent out two replacement gateways. Same problem. I have a consistent good signal. I can go a couple of weeks with no disconnects and then have a few days in a row where I am restarting the gateway multiple times just to get internet service. 

The customer support all use the same flow chart and I get to the same place every time. They have me to a factory reset followed by a speed test and then say we will call back tomorrow to see how things are working. Usually it disconnects right after I hang up with them.

I am think it is time to consider an alternative ISP.

M

I’m having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line.  I’ve had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network.  When I say “drop the network,” I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it’s broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says “no network found.  (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.)  Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn’t prevent it from happening again.  Whatever is happening doesn’t seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won’t just disconnect randomly.  

 

To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn’t have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway’s wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.)  They’ve sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact).   I’ve noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it’s an issue with the device overheating.  However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting.  The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together.  Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the “heavy lifting” of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it?  I don’t have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I’m running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.   

 

Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?

II am having the exact same issues as you. It's a huge problem because I am working from home and my calls keep dropping for no reason. Even though the strength is at 3 or 4 bars, out of nowhere I have a big X on the box that says connection lost. This is not a good look for me where my job is concerned. They are going to send me back to the office because of T-Mobile. I have supposedly upgraded to the newer box which is black. I have no faith at all that this is going to work.

U
Userlevel 1

An update - after receiving new modem router and positioning it to a different location. I was up and running for 18 days straight before needing to reset.

Then went for 10 days and had to reset.

Would also like to point out that I disconnected my Hughes Hub. As another poster mentioned anything sending out a Wi-Fi signal in your home will certainly affect the system.

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