Forum Discussion
Is download speed affected by cellular activity?
I'm trialing T-Mobile home internet. Got the new white 5G gateway. I get 3 bars pretty consistently from a tower about 3 miles away in an industrial area. I've noticed considerably slower download...
This can be from a couple of items.
- As mentioned - deprioritization this hits some areas worse than others. I've been lucky enough to not really have this in my area (suburbia)
- Overall signal quality/congestion. At times, your device may switch from 5G n41 + LTE to 5G n71 + LTE to … LTE only. When this occurs for me, +400/20Mbps → 170/70Mbps, and it is typically due to SINR/RSRP values. If your SINR is low, its either congestion (spectrum) or interference (objects). When I go below 8 on SINR for n41, it often drops to n71. SINR of 15 or better, and I'm rocking. I'm only ~1200' away from T-Mobile tower, but there's a building in between blocking
ok - on 4G LTE and 5G items, you’ll want to also look for ‘band’
If your band shows 41 on 5G, the's good, and may also explain why upload is slow. I do suspect that it is 5G n71, and LTE is B2 or B66 (based on RSRP readings).
For 3 miles, that's not a horrible signal, and is probably a clear line of site. Its possibly a combination of:
- Deprioritization
- More 'users' utilizing them spectrum , causing poorer values for SINR/RSRP. Eg. I can see during the day SINR go from 15 down to 8 on 5G and performance go from ~500Mbps down to 380.
I’m suspecting the 2nd more than the 1st, as true deprioritization would make many services almost unusable.
