Forum Discussion
New Gateway
I got just got T-Mobile last week for my home and my parent's home. My parents have an iPad and security cameras. My home has a gaming system, security cameras, streaming tv, computers, etc. My que...
As "Oregon" stated you can use speedtest.net to run tests and move the router about. That is helpful but locating the tower and knowing the reporting from the cellular signals is also important. If you get the RSRP, RSRQ, SINR values and the PCI info for the cellular signals then you can dial it in. You have to understand how the metrics work and how each value relates to the signal but a few searches on the web can help explain how the values work.
If you get a clean signal i.e. with improved signal to noise ratio then you should see improved performance. If you see the SNR signal to noise ratio is poor then you know it may be a challenge. If you locate the tower and have good distance to the tower without too many obstructions or line of sight then the SNR can be improved and the other metrics should as well. To some degree. It takes a little experimentation to dial it in.
You might get lucky and find a good spot right away and get great download and upload speeds with low latency then it is not so important to go into the nitty gritty as to how it all works.
The mobile application is NOT super helpful. You can manage the Nokia gateway from the web UI with the local LAN going to the 192.168.12.1 gateway IP. You can possibly get the application to work but it is a little tricky and I dont find it all that useful myself. Before I had that mobile app fully satisfied for its setup it would crash and hang up my iPhone 12 Pro. I uninstalled it and only recently put it back on to see if it was any better than a year ago. Some parts of the mobile app work ok but others not so much. Dont expect it to report the devices on the LAN, unless you are really lucky.
You can use the web application and see the cellular information from the local LAN. If you post the metrics for the internet connections and the info on the cellular signals I can possibly help you improve it a little. You need to get good exposure to the tower so if you have the PCI information that is reported for each cellular signal you can use cellmapper.net to locate the tower. Cellmapper.net is ~80% complete and can provide location information about the cells. You can filter for 4G and 5G NR and even more granular but using either 4G LTE or 5G NR is best to start. Dont filter too much or you might get nothing. Cellmapper.net is free and on the web. If you know the router receives n71 for the 5G or n41 5G signaling then you can look for the PCI physical cell identifier in the information provided by the search of the area for the T-Mobile towers.
