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.
formercanuck wrote:
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.
And you are right on the money with this. I apologize, because I was wrong. There is fiber going up that road but that could be for something else because there is a fixed wireless provider that's co-located on that Tower. There are indeed microwave antennas on the tower. Interestingly enough the weekend after it stopped working well was when Ophelia came this way and the wind was blowing like crazy. So your theory is very well plausible. They seem to be taking it a little bit more serious in the X support chat so we will see. I'm not demanding that it be fixed ASAP because I'm realistic but I'm just trying to at least get an acknowledgment that there is something going on and that is going to be looked into. That's 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.
These are the speeds my wife wrote down 2 Fridays ago, around 5:45 PM. Same property same tower.
To be clear, it's not as rural as rural is sometimes taken to mean. It's not "middle of nowhere" rural. We are about 15 minutes from town. Backhaul is not microwave, at least not directly from this tower. I can see it clearly from my property. I have also seen the fiber markers going up the road to the tower. The tower is the only thing up that road.
I have initiated a chat with TMobile on X, but a bit disheartened that they start out with something to the effect of we'll help but understand we can't guarantee coverage in all areas. I even linked them to this thread with all the data that discusses as little as 2 weeks ago, I had much better service. And if I'm getting signal lie I am but 1 or sub 1Mbps, something is up.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Hey thanks for the response. Absolutely could be backhaul issues. I am 100% they are using fiber as it isn't quite as middle-of-nowhere rural, but rural/farming community it its own right. In any event, I can see the fiber going up the road and back towards town on my drive in. There is no one else up there. Not to mention, I as I said before, I was getting really great (for this area) speeds 2 weeks ago.
The most frustrating part of the entire situation is that these frontline people just cannot fix or even understand/know the issues. I feel like actual network engineers, if they knew about the problem and that I wasn't just some idiot complaining my cat videos run slow, that they'd want to actually fix it. Maybe that is just my work ethic, but I would hope so. In any event, I plan on testing a prepaid in a totally different phone to wholly eliminate any potential weird account issues that could be causing throttling or something. Not hopeful this is it.
As far as bands, I was actually doing that testing last night. All bands are basically the same, though there is some evidence that n71 is messed up. Not by much though. Could just be that whatever issue is causing overall speed issues is hitting n71 the hardest. I have verified with cellmapper and SCP that I am only hitting one tower ever.
That being said, n71 has decent stats. (FAR more than what my speeds indicate):
BAND71 (5G)
RSRP -81dBm
RSRQ -12dBm
SINR 8dB
BAND25 (5G)
RSRP -85dBm
RSRQ -11dBm
SINR 9dB
4G is even better, but speeds are honestly near exactly the same, which is very odd:
And this is what I am getting. This is from 1 device, but should be noted that this is experienced across ALL of my devices .The average for all of those would be about the same. The Yellow is Download and green upload. Notice the times, this is literally in as middle of the night as you can get. We have no overnight businesses here. Just a lot of us farmers who sleep at night. Notice the averages at the bottom as well.
But yeah, according to T-Mobile, everything "looks fine" with the tower. Sure...I feel the signal data plus the speeds are pretty definitive that there is something wrong.
