switching towers/bands --Hello I just got my 5g router in the mail 2 days ago the first day was a complete bust i had 3 bars but the connection was horrible/non existent so i tried did some research and used the app looking for the best signals and everything moving this thing all over for hours-still 3 bars and i would think thats enough I literally could not even get it to load speedtest before or a webpage hardly no connecting to anything basically when its on this band/tower not even the web user interface it also only has a primary connection and no secondary the primary is b71 and the secondary is not connected. then i just left it alone and randomly tried it and it only had 2 bars this time-weak according to the app but it actually loaded a webpage then i managed to get 50mbps on a speedtest and watch some youtube on 4k! i was feeling good i looked at the web interface and noticed i was not on the same band anymore and the primary b66 and secondary n71 bands and then bam it switched back to the b71 with no secondary connection and basically no data connection at all-witch i found out is a different tower than the one with b66 and n71. so i noticed it seems to kick me off this tower almost all day i have no connection because its connecting to this other tower that doesnt seem to even work this is very consistent everything like steam/xbox live/speedtest or anything else disconnects as soon as this switch happens i really dont want to call support and i thinks its crappy that you can sign up with this through a chat box but you cant get support through the chat kind of ridiculous also the tower with the b71 also has 5g on it but im not connecting to it. so it seems like there forcing me on a tower with no data connection all day long then around 10 pm it works decent all night so far im not sure this is something you could consider a home internet solution maybe the tower is being worked on or something i really dont know im sure i will have to call at some point because i need internet during the day too lol. im in central wisconsin sorry for the long post just needed to put this out there! and maybe someone knows something…
T-mobile 5g home internet forcing to tower with no data issues/changing towers/bands
I don’t know if this is relevant, but it may help someone else who has made the same mistake and is having issues with 5g connections. Recently I called customer support to troubleshoot my crappy connection which kept intermittently dropping needing reset of silver Nokia unit and they chose to send me a “replacement”. When I set up the new one, I relocated it about 4’ from the old spot (just on the other side of the window where it had sat iin the past with the same issues) and again, it had the same connection problems. Using the nearest outlet, the huge plug was very visible so I used a flat-type connector 3’ extension cord and dropped the cords behind the table. The old unit was also connected to this same extension cord.
So my signal didn’t change. After rebooting, it would connect to both bands for a few seconds then go strictly to the B41 band (i think that’s the one). Frustrating... I don’t know what triggered the memory, but I recalled reading somewhere that connecting things to extension cords could cause issues like overheating, so I removed the cord, plugged the unit directly into the wall and I’ve had solid continuous dual band connection with 125-150mbps for the last 2 days (25mbps max prior). So for some reason beyond my limited understanding of these things, the cord was interfering with the 5g signal and probably messing with the other band as well. I suppose it could be cooincidence and it was the new unit that helped stabilize the signals, but I think it was the extension cord.
Hope this makes sense and is useful to anyone having issues that may also be using an extension cord.
ItsMeSB
I'm posting this for people who are recently looking at this thread.
The old silver Nokia "gateway" cylinder is junk - most are the chips used were NOT really to spec and succumb to heat sooner or later. (I went thru 4 of these in 2 years, before T-Mo switched to the black Arcadyan gateways. (These have their own unique problem of frequently losing their 5G connection!)
Long-story-short, I have been with T-Mo Home Internet for over 3 years - I had 1 year of good service. I may be switching to a new provider in 5 days, due to continued awful, inconsistent data speeds (10-50 Mbps) with T-Mo. I'm on my 3rd black Arcadyan gateway - they all eventually lose the 5G connection, and I'm only 300ft. from one 5G tower and less than 1/4 mile away from another! What an irritating, frustrating shame!!
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/
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
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
It’s depressing to see someone make a post a year ago, for the exact same problem I currently have
Cell phones get top priority once utilization reaches a certain threshold. Don't know what that level is exactly, but home internet packets will get heavily queued when it happens (you can see the jitter factors go through the roof when it kicks in). If it holds them long enough you risk timeouts depending on the application's tolerance for delayed packets.
Thus, the <usual> culprit is the congestion level. Not necessarily for the wireless, but it can also be on the back haul as well. A single tower can host multiple bands at the same location, all feeding into the same upstream pipeline. Which can lead to a massive chokepoint under high utilization.
As a result, lately TMO seems to be wrangling with a capacity issue more so than coverage.
Definitely both. They manage to not only get dead spots in rural/semi-rural ears and major highways, but even in the middle of the city they have random spots with bars but no service. Usually those areas your phone is observably switching between LTE/5G and different frequencies, often without being able to do more than slowly load a webpage. Even urban areas near Bellevue headquarters have issues.
5G signal has been in & out off & on 50-60 times a day over in Pace FL. Both the phone & tower for wifi go out. I was rebooting every 5-10 minutes on the phone, but gave up on the wifi. Customer support was sympathetic, but mostly useless 😕 The one good piece of advise, actually very helpful was to just go in & out of airplane mode. It was vastly quicker to reconnect to T-Mobile this way.
Tech support said they were not showing any problems with the tower my phone was connected through. My response, Yeah, right now it's fine, that's how I'm able to talk to you tech superstar Clair! You need to check the tower history not a snapshot. Sprint customers got shafted! T-mobile's sim card was not compatible with my Sprint purchased Galaxy 8 +, forcing me to by another phone that was built for T-Mobile service. I just couldn't get myself to spend over another $1100 for the Samsung I wanted. Paid about $285 cash on the Motorola Ace 5G. No contract no commitment.
T-Mobile undeniably has the best service price, but customer service is really just lip service now! I am giving them another week to fix this or I'm just going to have to pay someone else for these services that can work.
Facts: Speed test for T-Mobile on phone & wifi from April through July 180-410mbs download, 12-110mbs upload. These speeds are still consistent when I'm able to connect to service.
Sorry, I was kinda rambling while waiting for Tower to give me signal again 🥺😉😂🤣
I wonder if anyone from T-Mobile actually reads these...they would instantly know that they have a problem that needs to be fixed asap otherwise they are basically cheating their customers. They should not even be charging customers until the service is satisfactory in line with their promises as well as customer expectations.
So i ended up moving and canceling about 5 days before my next bill date ---WATCH OUT T-MOBILE IS STILL TRYING TO CHARGE ME FOR THIS SERVICE AND I HAVE NO WAY TO LOG IN WITHOUT LINKING A T-MOBILE NUMBER MY ACCOUNT IS INACCESABLE TO CHECK MY BILL OR ANYTHING YET I CAN STILL LOG IN TO MAKE THIS COMMENT
This has by far been the worst service i have ever had in my life and T-MOBILE in general is horrible to do business with ---to cancel and return my device i went to the t-mobile store thinking i could do it all at once NOPE i pretty much got yelled at to leave the store that they only sell plans there ---another store employee at least noticed how rude the lady was and talked to me and gave me a phone number to call ---this is insane if you ask me ---keep in mind i got this plan and device through the chat….that offers 0 support and i cant log in and even on the phone they want a phone number that does not exist anymore i wonder how much money t-mobile is stealing from people who have not noticed there being charged after canceling----this company really should not be aloud to do business at all
I got a $45 5G antenna on amazon. There are varieties of sellers
There seems to be a fair number of home Internet customers who had good service a few months ago and now practically have no service. T-Mobile is just giving us the runaround, they give equivocating responses about congestion on their system, which of course is their responsibility.
And finally they tell you they have no plans to improve their capacity, so if you don’t like it you should leave. What’s the contact point for the FCC Complaints? Has anyone contacted any other agencies or law offices yet?
For those who are still having connection issues, I will suggest external antenna. Its been a blessing for me. I have enjoyed consistently good signal since I introduced the external help.
+2
well i got the 5g gray unit last week and spent the last 2 weeks trying to get my cameras to be seen thru the device. the speed for me was around 100mbps on average. the thing had 4 bars no matter where i put it, but i think it may have had only 2 or 3 for real because i’m colorblind an if i held it a bit of an angle it almost looked like gray bars. anyway because i can’t get my cameras thru it it is not a real modem/gateway but kind of sounds like it is a hot spot as other here are saying. i tried the wife’s phone for getting on the internet and i can but again no cameras get thru.
now i did a coverage map and the tower is maybe a mile away and i’m on te edge of 5g and 4g. so i may have been on 4g the whole time. but for the 65$ they want and the speed being so variable and no cameras outside of my house it goes back this week. i suppose i will have to pay the whole charge of 55$ but now i know. one thing that has been talked abut here is if during the day the 5g starts getting busy and then my gateway takes second place over phones and the speed gets throttled back that will not do. so unless someone has figured out hot to get cameras thru the unit and can verify these gateways will not take a back seat to phones then i may keep it if not i will pay comcast and keep a stiff upper lip. thanks
also i wish the firmware was available so you could try older versions easier or get the new updates released for download instead of them having to force it to your device at this point they must have so many complaints it has to be unreal so i would think they would be getting some really smart people to fix these problems but this service has been in testing for awhile it seems so im not really to sure how much they plan on doing it seems like its pretty low priority so far and really if my device is not faulty then there are some serious problems in my area with t-mobile service and thats ok i just wish they wouldnt of said i qualify if i dont for like a year every week or 2
i searched for new isp providers for the area even all cell phone hotspot plans everything nothing was really reasonable under 100$ a month is reasonable for me as long as the service lives up to expectations some problems are always expected and hopefully t-mobile is just having some temporary issues.
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.
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.
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
yea i think there is a major design flaw or just a huge software/firmware issues causing it to idk do something to overwork itself its by far the hottest electronic device ive ever had without a fan i dont think it could possibly last very long i think it runs hotter than a good gaming graphics card even thats pulling 150 watts kind of crazy im really hoping i just got a bad device but im pretty sure almost every post ive seen has said its hot or they have a fan on it.
still not connected to any tower.
i read a post on reddit about a guy getting 4 replacements just sounds crazy and like there is a major issue with the device.
yeah i do think i cook mine. it runn hotter the normal and wont connect to a second tower.
yea i think there is a major design flaw or just a huge software/firmware issues causing it to idk do something to overwork itself its by far the hottest electronic device ive ever had without a fan i dont think it could possibly last very long i think it runs hotter than a good gaming graphics card even thats pulling 150 watts kind of crazy im really hoping i just got a bad device but im pretty sure almost every post ive seen has said its hot or they have a fan on it.
still not connected to any tower.
i read a post on reddit about a guy getting 4 replacements just sounds crazy and like there is a major issue with the device.
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.
so yeah i touch mine today. its not in direct sun light. its hot to the point i turn it off.
also it says its connected to second signal. but after a bit of checking. its not what so ever.
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.
Well I wish you the best of luck.
ah well i tried to unplug the 5g router for 10 mins again and see if it would connect back to the b66 n71 tower but it did not so i guess that i cant reproduce that so maybe overheating isnt the issue.
this is the usual speedtest from this tower
DOWNLOAD TEST ERROR
A socket error occurred during the download test. A firewall could be blocking the connection or the server might be having some issues. Please try again later. also the ping was 1468 before this message came up.
Im actually pretty into computers and def would not be willing to let anyone else do anything to my computer also these problems occur on multiple pc and cell phones and xbox smart tvs.
i even have a computer i just built with a brand new install of windows and new parts get the same problems.
i also have done all the cmd prompt ip and dns configurations and resets and renewing/registering dns and ip basically every internet configuration thing i could possibly think to do ive done now im not a pro and consider myself to be mediocre at pc related stuff but yea idk ive been building pcs for a long time now and typically troubleshoot/fix family and friends pcs pretty regularly. to me its a problem between the router and the tower or some settings t-mobile only has access to.
also i regularly take my pc to freinds/family for gaming and or to update games because the internet is to slow to download 100 gb in any sort of timely manner and i have no problems using other peoples internet connections.
i mostly use visible cell phones mobile hotspot for all my internet when im at home and have normal consistent internet its just capped at 5mbps for hotspot while i normally dont even get 5mbps its basically always 2-5 mbps or more and has always worked for general internet/video around 720p sometimes during peak times only 480p but this is also stated that its capped at 5mbps so i dont have the same expectations from a plan thats only offering 5mbps. im pretty sure t-mobile says that it shouldnt be less than 25mbps and that most people are getting 100 mbps or more.
anyways i got this device through a chat box so i find it kind of off that they dont have chat support for it. and this should be a very simple plug and play thing to setup so yea idk if someone really needs to come out to do something to make this device work than they shouldnt be offering it to people and clearly it works really well for some so i just have to think its a local tower issue or the 5g router device is faulty.
i am going to get in contact with t-mobile sometime in the next week or 2 just have other stuff i have planned already and its kind of idk not really a huge priority as im already going to be billed again in a week so im stuck with it at least another 5 weeks in my mind maybe ill make it into town at some point and goto the t-mobile store maybe i can just exchange my router for a new one.
although i really feel like general t-mobile employees are not going to really help much i do think i need to at the very least get in touch with someone in the next week or 2 for one last effort and if its not working or some kind of news of towers being worked on after that i will just have to settle with 5mbps visibles cellphone as a hotspot.
yes that’s partly true but If you call them about your issue your having they may come out to look at It I have a friend who had a problem and the geek squad came out and fixed the problem for them but there is a charge. But If that doesn’t work out then maybe you can talk to a computer technician If you know them and see If they can come out and look at your problem.
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