Forum Discussion
Sudden terrible (and strange) data speeds at home, TMo Tells me the towers are "fine"
I'll try to be brief, but have a bit of data to share. First, let me state that T-Mobile supports reps are super nice, BUT cannot think outside of the narrow box they are trained in and really can't help much. I have contacted and been on the phone with them 2 times now for hours trying to figure this problem out. Said they were going to toss it to network engineers and get back to me. Well, problem still exists, no call back, still getting really really awful speeds for no reason that I can think of other than tower or transport issues.
Also, while I am not professing to be an expert in this arena, I am actually a network and infrastructure engineer at a massive/global manufacturing company by trade and have been for 2 decades now so I am very familiar with this space.
The important bits:
T-Mobile Magenta Max (Veteran) Family Plan (so effectively unlimited data and something like 40GB or 60GB tethering, which we never use).
6 Lines (2 lines are in TX and have NO issues at all, the other 4 are in Virginia, we are all having issues at home)
Had the same plan for almost 5 years now and this has never happened.
Live in a rural area, but we have one tower that is .6 miles from my house. It is on a small mountain and I have a direct line of site, unobstructed to it.
I get about 2-3 bars 5G or, if I set it to LTE for preferred, I get full bars.
2 Fridays ago, I was doing some testing of speeds around my property outside. We wrote down download and upload speeds in about 25 different areas around the house. The average of all of these was around 60 Mbps/5 Mbps. This is actually not the fastest, but suitable considering the area. This was on 5G.
About a week ago, we started getting TERRIBLE performance on our phones. I am talking less than 1Mbps-2 Mbps down and like 50 Mbps upload for some reason, consistently. This happens on 3 different android phones (Pixels and Galaxy), and an iPhone 14.
I get the same exact speed range no matter if I force 4G, 5G and no matter where i am at on the property for the most part.
When we go elsewhere and run Speedtests, our speed is as would be expected for the most part. Like in a different city where I work.
When I test via hotspot or tether, again..speeds exactly the same range of speed .
A few other things that may be related (since they seem to be data related)
None of these 4 lines can dial data-related short codes (i.e. #WEB#). We either get a message stating this Service is not available (or valid) your your account type -or- it will spin and then come back after like 2 minutes and say "Connection problem or invalid MMI Code"
When I look at my account online, it says for these lines that we have used 0.00GB of data which is not accurate at all.
Again, these may not be related, but a little bit suspect IMO.
When the reps say they look a the tower, there is no enhancement or upgrade going on. OK, fine but that doesn't mean something isn't messed up. There clearly is something going on. I know the exact tower identifier I am using (again, there is only one here) but they cannot confirm they are looking at the right one bc they say they don't have that info (comeon...really?)
I use multiple sources for testing speed and they are all fairly in alignment. I am not exaggerating when I say I am getting such slow speeds, even on 5G or LTE. I tested just a minute ago and it was 876k down and 27 Mbps up.
It’s not congestion
There is just no way. To start, most people in this part of my county either don't have mobile phones still/yet (farming community) and, if they do, they use either Verizon or US Cellular. Population density is very sparse and we are not a place where people come in and out of and demand changes. So to go from 30-40Mbps average to 1.5Mbps or less in 2 weeks seems super far fetched.
I am frustrated bc I keep getting told that it will get looked into but doesn't seem to be an I never get a call back and the problem remains. I am at a loss on what to do. We rely on mobile phones this far out and this is frankly unacceptable. We are paying lot for nothing it seems.
Does anyone have any advice or suggestions at all?
BBB escalation will get you a bit more than the typical locals, but I have had your message of “we can't guarantee coverage in all areas” often.
I’d almost recommend taking a ‘drive by’ the tower (½ mile away?) and taking a ‘test’.
and similarly network readings.
I did mention above that it took me a CPUC written complaint to get T-Mobile to ‘fix’ the 0.3Mbps 5G service, along with a BBB escalation. 8 months .
Then, after publishing the written response, it was fixed in 1 month. Press them on the issue - tell them you have full bars, but effectively unusable service. 5G 'should be' +100Mbps (according to past reps). 1Mbps at ½ mile is pretty bad, especially with good power level, and usable SINR.
Why I mention microwave … I'm in a suburban area, the local tower here is microwave. A 'bump' (wind, or other) can move these a bit out of alignment - or … something comes in between. For the amount of spectrum available and signal, your results (2 weeks ago) were decent.
fireguy_6364 wrote:
Part1of2 wrote:
I don't think this is what is happening to me. My issues has been going on for a few days and I have full bars LTE or 2 bars 5G with strong signal and can't get above 1 Mbps. It is like we are super throttled or something. Hopefully your issue gets resolved soon.
do your speeds improve once you leave your home area by say 5+ miles in any direction?
couple things to keep in mind..carriers usually dont have the full real time status of towers unless they actually own them..which most dont own the actual tower..they must send in tower issue request and then wait for that info to get back to them..same scenario with having someone go out and check them..you might opt to contact TMO through either Facebook or Twitter and have them put in a network ticket for you.
especially seeing as how the other phones on your account in a completely different state are working perfectly fine. so its pointing back at towers/that area
Yes, they do. All of them. As a matter of fact, my wife is about 15 miles from here in town and I asked her to run a speed test from one of the lines having issues here at home.
This is what she got:
Same device, just got home.
I actually don't do Facebook or X, but maybe I will sign up for X just to do this. It's really sad that you can't get support by contacting support.
The other question is more … how much bandwidth is available on each band ?
LTE is kinda low, but decent (all 3 bands should aggregate) for ~100Mbps or more
RSRP is really good, while the SINR is kinda ‘meh’.
- How much bandwidth is on n71 (eg. I have 15x15)
- How much bandwidth is on n25 (eg. I have 20x20).
- Does is make much difference toggling 5G SA vs NSA ?
Eg. S23 will aggregate LTE B2 + B66 (B4) + 5G NSA n41
Where I'm, 5G NSA doesn't work with n25 … only SA. Also, 'if' you could (Samsung) switch to n25 SA only … vs n71 SA only vs LTE only.
typical where I am, my SINR is better, but RSRP is worse - from the worst location indoors.
B2 LTE (15x15): 49Mbps / 4.4 Mbps
B66 LTE (20x20): 70Mbps/8Mbps
B12 LTE (5x5): 15Mbps/5.7Mbps
B71 LTE (10x10): 27Mbps/11Mbps
LTE B2+B66+B12 : 130Mbps/9Mbps
n25 SA (20x20): 90Mbps/14Mbps
n71 SA (15x15): 46Mbps/20Mbps
n41 SA (100 + 40) 245Mpbs/4Mpbs
5G SA auto (n71 + n41) 230/15Mbps
5G NSA + LTE (LTE B2 + LTE B66 + n41) = 360Mbps/6Mbps
Best results (outdoor, clean line of site ≈ 700Mbps/140Mbps)
Better site (same spectrum) ~=2Gbps/140Mbps.
Tower ≈ 1200’ away through trees and part of a building
ok so its for sure a tower issue then. if you havent yet contact TMO through anything but calling in and have them put in a network ticket for you. this forces someone to go out and actually check for issues that they might not be seeing in their system.
I would tend to agree… either network aggregation (rural may be aggregating to an overloaded location), backhaul itself (microwave - being rural ?) … or something else along those lines. Typically, in my travels at least, most rural areas are capped ~750Mbps (1gbps ports?), but typically obtain something quite decent - well above 200Mbps - even for LTE only. Not too many rural subs. Had something similar when I went to Estes park a few years back. Service was so poor that calls wouldn't hold - with 'full bars'. Even the T-Mobile app messaging would timeout. Their ETA to 'fix' was +8 months (i.e. in July they told me it would be fixed by the following April). Of course, it was to take over a Sprint tower in the middle of town (all other carriers had a spot on the main street strip, except T-Mobile).
It definitely sounds like something between the tower and its aggregation point. If you can't get anything out of TMobile tech support - go up the food chain - BBB can open an escalation.
These are the speeds my wife wrote down 2 Fridays ago, around 5:45 PM. Same property same tower.
Well, looks like I am being given the "Usually when the upload speeds are high like that and download speeds are low like that, that means congestion" nickel and dime at this point. I figured as much. It's frustrating to have so many people work so hard to not actually solve a problem that so clearly exists. Even a "hey, we will schedule a network engineer to check it out in the area, but it will be a month or x amount of time" is far better than "yeah, nah, just congestion!".
Congestion makes 0 sense here. I realized that I used Speedtest for the Friday, 9/22 tests we did, so it saved my results. This graph really show the literal dive my results took. To me, and anyone else who can think even remotely critically can look at this graph and see SOMETHING happened. We didn't get a sudden influx of population all in one day in my county of 44,000. I am not trying to be insulting, just frustrated it is this hard to get any type of service in any way.
I even referred them to this thread with all of the information and testing and proof and sadly, I don’t even think they read more than perhaps part of the first post to get a gist of what is going on.
https://www.speedtest.net/results?sh=a4f51f27ae9c93e5b252163ff19d6fee
Okay here's a head scratcher for you guys since I've got this internet okay I've only been able to get three bars never anything more and to top it all off I've never been over three and a half four and a half megs per second during the daytime but yet at night it automatically jumps up to about 25 to 35 megs per second and then when the sun comes up it drops back down to 1.3 to 2.3 so I started kind of paying attention to the times now about 8:00 9:00 in the morning the bandwidth drops to below five megs and will not go higher all day after 10:00 it jumps up to about 25 and will f*** you wait all night long between about 25 and 35 I called T-Mobile multiple times explain the problem ask them what's going on they tell me everything's fine they said they're going to reset my deal they're going to do this and that and it should fix the problem but it still has yet to fix the problem. Oh and not to mention when I try to set up the the router with the T-Mobile app 90% of the time it tells me can't detect the signal I put in an invalid address and if I finally do get it to detect the signal it tells me I'm in a bad area for that signal and one time from a support guy I got the excuse of I'm in between two towers so it's constantly switching between towers. I've literally tried almost every location in my house for better signal never hits pay 3 bars and here are SS from app
@Maniac0609 So, honestly, this sort of sounds like typical congestion. The times, for the most part, you are describing slower speeds are generally during what are peak times for any internet usage. This is different than my issue because your speeds go back up and they ebb and flow, go up and down during distinct periods of time. Mine, used to be high, then tanked and never change, no matter what I do.
I could be totally wrong, but that is what I see in your description. One thing to try is to see what happens if you force 4G during these slow periods. It may be less congested on 4G, offering you better speeds, since more devices are starting to use 5G. Sort of like taking a side or back road instead of the packed highway during rush hour.
One thing to add that I thought about for my situation is that the only thing different about the device for which the speedtests recently posted is that it was a brand new device on the network and on that tower. That was the first day I turned it on and ran those speedtests that day, but then didn't again until nearly 2 weeks later. Is it possible that the tower overall is throttled in general for everyone due to capacity issues but that this device, since it was new, was sort of allowed free reign until something kicked in to throttle the IMEI? Part of me thinks that seems far-fetched, but then part of me is like..absolutely carriers could do this. idk what to think at this point. I really have no choice but to keep pushing until something happens I guess.
Maniac0609 wrote:
Okay here's a head scratcher for you guys since I've got this internet okay I've only been able to get three bars never anything more and to top it all off I've never been over three and a half four and a half megs per second during the daytime but yet at night it automatically jumps up to about 25 to 35 megs per second and then when the sun comes up it drops back down to 1.3 to 2.3 so I started kind of paying attention to the times now about 8:00 9:00 in the morning the bandwidth drops to below five megs and will not go higher all day after 10:00 it jumps up to about 25 and will f*** you wait all night long between about 25 and 35 I called T-Mobile multiple times explain the problem ask them what's going on they tell me everything's fine they said they're going to reset my deal they're going to do this and that and it should fix the problem but it still has yet to fix the problem. Oh and not to mention when I try to set up the the router with the T-Mobile app 90% of the time it tells me can't detect the signal I put in an invalid address and if I finally do get it to detect the signal it tells me I'm in a bad area for that signal and one time from a support guy I got the excuse of I'm in between two towers so it's constantly switching between towers. I've literally tried almost every location in my house for better signal never hits pay 3 bars and here are SS from app
The interesting part, is that you have 'really' good service sinr of 28, rsrp of -87, rsrq of -11? Site must me across the street.
150-300Mbps could be seen as deprioritization or just congestion. Im in suburbia, where signal isnt as good, but often have higher speeds. As a note, your sinr on lte is not great, and having 5g NSA, it may be pulling down speeds (handset has more bands and can go 5g SA ).
I can hit +400 but higher on my S23
