Forum Discussion
Very slow 5G internet speeds at certain times
Like just about everyone else my complaint seems to be about a severe slow down in download and upload speeds at certain hours of the mornings, late afternoons and nights on my 5G home gateway. Restarting the gateway does nothing. Here is the real answer: T-Mobile oversells their services, phone and internet thus overloading a cell towers capacity. They do this so as not to tell potential customers that they can't give them service. Making a sale is number one. This is what I was told by a salesperson who quit their job because they could not sell like this. Also 5G internet service is at the bottom of the priority chain with cell phone service at the top. When the cell towers are full of phone calls, internet service can slow to a crawl.
It's actually not overselling, but preventing overuse. You're connected to the same service that your phone is. Mobile devices have higher priority that home internet, its that simple. Similar to going over your 50 or 100GB monthly useage on your mobile, your home internet can share services over many devices, and has no useage limit, and is very inexpensive.
I personally haven't hit performance issues in my area on either. The local tower only covers around 1 mile at best. And is quite residential.
I haven’t seen any upload changes (unless I go from n41 to n71), but I have noticed that before ~6:30am speeds will max out ~100Mbps on download, then afterwards, it is back to ~+500Mbps.
Cellphone won’t have this issue - only home gateway, and it won’t matter if I reboot.
I am talking large discrepencies in speed. When at certain times it goes to almost 300 Mbps download and 75 Mbps upload. This is using an ethernet connection, not wifi on my home computer. My gateway shows good to excellent signal strength.Then during peek hours of cell phone use it can drop to 10 Mbps or less download and 1.5 Mbps upload. I have used Wifi Man and Opensignal as well as my own tests to see if what I am receiving is true. This is clearly a a problem with the tower 2 miles away not being able to handle those phone calls and the lower priority of the 5G internet service. I have always gotten the "working on the tower" excuse that has lasted for over a year from T-Mobile tech support. I live alone in a 2 bedroom condo on a terraced hill near the top in a large city suburb. Most of the time I can watch tv without buffering and use my computer for routine internet work even at the slowest speeds. I am trying very hard not to go back to AT&T and fight over their rate increases.
More than likely, deprioritization.
Do you have a mobile phone with TMobile? If your mobile stays consistent, and home internet is poor, then its deprioritization.
If your area is spectrum challenged (eg Charlevoix MI is 60MHz n41 + AWS only, while here in SoCal, its 180MHz n41 + 20x20 n25 + 15x15 n71 + 20x20 aws + 15x15 pcs + 10x10 b71 .. good for 2gbps at times. Other sites like mine max at +700Mbps because of backhaul.
Getting only 300Mbps with 'excellent ' tells me its probably weak on spectrum, and you're getting hit with deprioritization. A cellphone speedtest will determine it
Mine goes bottom up when connecting to N41, think I am just outside it’s range and occasional connects.
I have seen mine drop during certain periods - I suspect ‘deprioritization’ - just the hours typically don’t always make sense, as well as SINR.
Ironically… middle of day/evening (into middle of the night) - Gateway 'may' drop to 160-240Mbps/45Mpbs with n41 / B66 (or n41 / B2). Cell phone - 400-450/20Mbps
≈ 6am, Home gateway ≈ 650Mbps/55Mbps, cell phone ~=500-550Mbps/20Mbps.
kcwilsonii wrote:
Mine goes bottom up when connecting to N41, think I am just outside it’s range and occasional connects.
Could be. I did get VERY long range on my cell while in Michigan. Across Traverse Bay - n41 @15 miles and ~900Mbps. Of course at that range is was an all or nothing. I suspect timing may have played a role in the 'nothing' bits. Sort of similar in SoCal - Tower on 'Magic Mountain' ~4000' elevation, service from 10 miles away on n41 +400Mbps with clear line of site. Move behind 'anything' and the service drops to n25 / n71 or LTE.
Those are 'exceptions'. In places like the UP of Michigan, B12/B71 doesn't go beyond 7 or 8 miles - and service gaps exist even on the road.
