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.
Sadly, the more ‘rural’ coverage, the less important that T-Mobile sees it.
Eg. When T-Mobile had an outage for 8 hours in Cambria (power), it took 2 weeks to find out and their response was ‘the generator was broken’, while AT&T and Verizon had backups .
When there’s an issue around LAX, or a busy urban area .. its fixed VERY quickly.
Ironically, YEARS ago, when T-Mobile was upgrading local sites (adding LTE B12), my area turned into a near dead zone, as everything was preferring B12 LTE, and not handing off. I suspect that local teams were in the area checking service with the updates, as I had them check and send a map of a drive test within a few hours. Similarly, spoke with them on the phone, and they dropped the handoff down from ~-120dBm to ~-116dBm, which allowed for handoffs.
Unfortunately, that was years ago. Now its more of file a ticket … wait, and have some generic excuse of "Network is working as expected" … which only means IDK WTF it is , but my equipment isn't complaining or down.
formercanuck wrote:
Part1of2 wrote:
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.
Yours appears to be more of “it was good until a certain date for all devices at 1 location, 24x7”, which typically indicates something local or between the tower and upstream.
Yep, someone else contacted me via X this morning and I think it may actually be going a little further. I was told they did discover that there was some sort of backhaul issue and I think they are going to have an actual real live person go out there. I'll believe it when I see it, but they are basically still only telling me something I already know! Had I not been as super persistent, who knows how long I and my entire community around me would have to deal with such crap service.
Part1of2 wrote:
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.
Yours appears to be more of “it was good until a certain date for all devices at 1 location, 24x7”, which typically indicates something local or between the tower and upstream.
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
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 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.
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
Surprise, surprise. Working with the rep on X was a worthless endeavor. Based on the language used and the not exactly correct English, I assume I was once again talking with the very nice, yet utterly incompetent reps you get when you call on the phone. All they did was create a "ticket" that will inevitably get closed with literally no action taken. This is the same exact thing that has happened 2 other times since this problem started.
It's honestly shameful how terrible all of these large companies are nowadays. Since T-Mobile is quite literally my only option out here, my only choice is to keep paying them for speeds that I cannot even hardly browse the web with or go without completely.
They have proven they will absolutely go out of their way and above and beyond….to avoid doing anything to actually correct problems. WIth all of the evidence presented, can't possibly be bothered to send a tech out to the area to investigate further. Will have to figure out my next move now I suppose since the one place to go that is supposed to help does not.
Woops, didn't mean to choose a best answer yet! I was trying to hit like!
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
