Forum Discussion

DMart's avatar
DMart
Newbie Caller
Hace 5 años

Why does my mobile hotspot disconnect every 5 minutes?

I rely on my hotspot a lot to work from home because I live in a more rural area and for the past 3 weeks my hotspot disconnects any time I try to use a feature on my phone, check a text, etc. There are also times that no other apps are open on my phone and I have a strong connection and my hotspot disconnects every 5 minutes. 

  • Mavenlane's avatar
    Mavenlane
    Network Novice

    This happens to me when on my house barge at a marina where I can't get WiFi. I tether to my phone with the Magenta Max plan, 40GB of hotspot.  I connect wirelessly and can connect for just a little while before my phone just drops the connection. I seem to have more time before it drops if I connect physically via USB between my phone and laptop. My T-Mo coverage here is strong - too bad the hotspot does NOT work as advertised!

  • jlee2982's avatar
    jlee2982
    Network Novice

    Connect hotspot via bluetooth on your laptop, not via wifi. it will stay. 

  • RVChris's avatar
    RVChris
    Network Novice

    This seems an old thread, but it's an ongoing problem. Does anybody have a clue why my hotspot will randomly disconnect from the internet (usually after accessing a web page) even though the rest of my connected network (printer, et al.) remains usable? It only shuts off the internet gateway and this is unknown until I try to access another site. Sometimes it disconnects my laptop (Win 11) from the hotspot. Usually it doesn't. Regardless, it is unusable until I restart the hotspot--then back to business for an hour. Or two minutes. Or half a day. Or 23 minutes. Or less. Or more. 

    This is an Inseego M3000 and the 100G/month 5G plan, connected to a brand new HP laptop running Win 11. All updates in place.

    So, any answers? I travel in an RV and the signal strength seems robust enough, but this dropout has been happening more and more as I move north and east in the US (today in VT).

  • crown159's avatar
    crown159
    Network Novice

    My hotspot on my cell phone goes off like every 5 to 10 mins. I have checked all my phone settings and still does it, at this point I think the carrier is doing it and I am going to change phone company for my cell phone.

  • I_Am's avatar
    I_Am
    Transmission Trainee

    This sounds like user error.

    Hotspot settings need to be adjusted to not time out after idling for 5,10 minutes. You can change this to never occur.

     

    Pro tip: Restart your device before you enable your hotspot. This helps connect much better, albeit I haven't needed to do this in recent events. 

    Hotspot is only as good as the data connection and coverage available to you; Peak hours, rate plan, device capability Signal quality, and the fact on device data takes priority over mobile hotspot.

     

    Typical, the customers I see complaining about their hotspot experience are using it in a way it wasn't i Intended to be used and they would be better suited to use other means to access the Internet.