Home Internet - 4G LTE vs 5G

I’d like to know the answer to this, too. My primary is B41 and secondary, which I only have occasionally, is N71. Download speeds are usually around 75-80 mps. Sometimes the download speeds reach into the 200mps range but only for short periods.

I understand older devices won’t be as fast but if I test with my new phone when connected to the gateway I get the 75-80 range. If I turn wifi off and connect to 5G it is faster but never close to the speeds you’re getting. The tower is line of sight on my front porch less than a mile away and only get 3-4 bars.

Yeah, I’m ok with the speeds but they are nowhere what I was promised. They put new transmitters up on the tower a few weeks ago so I anticipated an upgrade but nothing so far.  It’s better than my cable which is always around 25 mps despite their ads that say 200 mps. I still can’t figure out why I’m getting 3-4 bars when I’m line of site less than a mile and I’ve tried moving the gateway around in different spots.

Note: The primary signal will be for your 4G control connection. The secondary signal id for your data and will be 5G if it is available. If your secondary signal Band is “n41”, then you are on 5G.

T-Mobile uses several 5G bands.   In my area the n71 600 Mhz band is used.  The n41 band obtained in the Sprint merger is being deployed in areas where T-Mobile does not have 600 Mhz coverage

• Frequencies that can provide 5G: 
  • Band n71 (600 MHz)
  • Band n41 (2.5 GHz)
  • Band n260 (39 GHz)
  • Band n261 (28 GHz)
• With 5G, high amounts of data can be transmitted more efficiently than 4G LTE. 
• One of the ways T-Mobile is rapidly deploying 5G is integrating mid-band 2.5 GHz spectrum from Sprint.

T-Mobile network | T-Mobile Support

I found that I got a better 5G connection when I configured…

Network… Wi-Fi Networks… 5GHz… Channel Bandwidth: 80MHz

instead of Auto.

@jlillard  Yes, a good secondary signal will get better speeds. If a slow secondary band has a strong signal, it can dominate the cell setup and keep you from connecting on a higher frequency band with better throughput. This is why 5 GHz wifi provides faster speeds than 2.4 GHz as long as the 5 GHz signal is strong enough to avoid packet loss.

@jlillard The secondary signal can also end up being 4G depending on the tower and the signal strength. If you end up with a 4G secondary signal, your top speed will be much lower. Your secondary band indicates the frequency used by your connection and that in turn determines your maximum speed. Your actual speed will also be affected by the signal strength, the other users connected to the same tower, and the tower’s backhaul speed (how fast it can send and receive data on the rest of the network).

N71 is 5G

I have 75 mps down on the gateway which lately only has B41 primary and no secondary., Turning the wifi off on my phone it connects to 5G and the download speed is into 200 mps range. So, I don’t know why the speed is different between the phone on 5G  and the gateway as iboth are only connecting to B41.

N71 is the 600 MHz 5G band, also known as Low Band.  Its peak speed can be up to 225 Mbps, but more likely to be in the 100-150 Mbps range.  It provides the furthest signal coverage.

N41 is the 2.5 GHz 5G band, also known as Mid Band that T-Mobile acquired in the Sprint merger.  My T-Mobile gateway is connected to the N41 band and I get up to 600 Mbps download.   The tower is about 1 mile from my home.

My gateway originally connected to the N71 band, but the tower must have been upgraded as it now connects to the faster n41 band.    I didn’t even notice the band change until recently, but did notice the faster speed.   

So my earlier posts about band 71 were incorrect as my gateway connects to n41.   Can’t update those older posts.

It’s your secondary signal connection that determines how fast your download speeds will be.

I have a similar situation. My secondary is often not connected. I get speeds in the single digits when that happens. Really sucks.

anything with n in front is 5G if it has b in front it’s LTE

see www.cellmapper.net

Ditto.  My device always has primary of B2, secondary of N41 and I barely get 30Mbs with lots of drop outs (waiting for Youtube to buffer).  At times, speedtest shows less than 1Mbs while the same test in the same room as the gateway gets over 300Mbs on 5g phone.  I’ve gotten used to just doing a screen cast from my 5G phone since the latest Chromecast (ten feet away) can’t connect to the gateway/internet at reliable speeds.  In other words, my 5g phone gets great 5g speeds but the Internet gateway - not so much.