5G Home internet keeps dropping!

For what it's worth, I've had the newer SAG FAST5688W gateway for about 2 months now and it is having the same drop issues, so I would doubt the issue is with the various gateways. The longest connection sustained so far has been a little over 2 days, and the worst has been multiple reboots per day. That said, when the service connects, I do usually get over 50Mb throughput (it's using the N71 band). Being in rural Virginia, this is great for us. 

To help make the constant rebooting less aggravating, I did see in another thread a device called Keep Connect - $50 on Amazon. Installed it yesterday and it has already automatically rebooted the device once, so now I don't have to manually intervene. We'll see - gateway has now been up 16h 38m 19s.

It's unfortunate that T-Mobile can't/won't fix their software to do what the Keep Connect device does - automatically detect connection failure and restore it. Funny how you never have to reboot your phone.

This is what I found:  (don’t know if it’s accurate or complete?)

Older:  Nokia 5G21 (gray)
Current:  Arcadyan KVD21 (black)
Newest:  Sagemcomm FAST 5688W (black)

My KVD21 is not overheating.  My devices rarely disconnect from the gateway.  A few weeks ago, I started frequently losing Internet access, even though they are still connected.  Sometimes it will repair on it's own.  Often I have to reboot the gateway to restore Internet access. Sometimes several times a day.  It feels like a software problem on the gateway.  Maybe with DNS not working?

I almost always have 4 bars on the signal strength, occasionally 3 or 5, but 4 is pretty consistent.

This morning, I have 5 bars.

Running Time 2d 3h 35m 1s

Not holding my breath, but this is the best I have seen it in a long time.

I'm using the Nokia Home Internet unit, currently on B66 and N41 with decent signal strength. However, every day, usually in the early to mid mornings, my internet connectivity completely vanishes for an hour or so, and then comes back later on in the day. Logging into the unit wirelessly works fine, and it shows LAN and WAN being active, but no data passes. Total data usage so far this month is 29GB, well within the 50GB soft cap. This problem has been happening for several months, and I called customer support and they ended up swapping out my unit, but the problem remains. 

Any idea WTH is going on?

I switched back to cable two days ago.

Now I can rest and not worry about Zoom calls dropping, my VOIP not completing and be able to watch streaming videos without a gateway reboot interruption.

I am curious if any one is lucky to be in area that has Verizion FWA to see if that service if more reliable.

My impression is that cellphone  data does trump home internet data, and that may explain why, at least here, the drop outs mainly seem to occur during rush hours. Still very annoying and IMO this service is only usable for non-critical apps or as a backup, which is how I use it here when my business-class Comcast goes on the fritz.

I am in a rural area and the T-Mobile service has been a godsend. It does drop out on occasion but it is much better than the AT&T 2MB service which is simply unusable. I also agree that it was better six months ago than it is now.

I am having a problem though with cloud based programs. For example, I utilize a company that hosts their software in the cloud and I will repeatedly get disconnected from it and have to sign back in every couple of minutes. It seems like there are momentary spikes of interruption that are enough to disconnect the service. This does not appear during normal web browsing, although it could be happening and is just not noticed.

Has anyone experienced this with an online service and have you found out any method of troubleshooting it?  

The cloud based application and the client most likely do not use the normal TCP ports for the session once established. You could load WireShark and take a packet capture of the client to server session communication to determine how they communicate. If there is heavier traffic load on the cell there is probably some traffic throttling taking place which might lead to delay and the interruption to the established session. If there is packet loss or retransmissions the capture with Wireshark could help determine what it taking place. If there is packet damage or loss then there would be evidence to the effect in retransmissions. The expert analysis in Wireshark can help pick it apart provide clues.

iTinkeralot wrote:

The cloud based application and the client most likely do not use the normal TCP ports for the session once established. You could load WireShark and take a packet capture of the client to server session communication to determine how they communicate. If there is heavier traffic load on the cell there is probably some traffic throttling taking place which might lead to delay and the interruption to the established session. If there is packet loss or retransmissions the capture with Wireshark could help determine what it taking place. If there is packet damage or loss then there would be evidence to the effect in retransmissions. The expert analysis in Wireshark can help pick it apart provide clues.

Thank you for this idea. I am talking to an IT friend about doing this for me.

If it is a company machine they may have to do so as many do lock down the clients so the users don't have administrative access. At HPE we did have administrative privileges and for our job it was imperative as we were doing network troubleshooting and remediation for customers. To run WireShark in its full capacity you really need to have administrative access. It may just be that T-Mobile has the traffic controls set where throttling of the traffic is a bit aggressive and that leads to the problem. 

If you can get the cellular metrics reported from the gateway it might help. Knowing if you have a strong signal is not enough. Knowing the RSRQ, signal receive quality, and the SINR, signal to noise ratio are actually important to know. If the signal is clean, i.e. good quality with low signal to noise ratio, the performance is usually better as there is less packet loss and/or damage. The session flow is smoother as there are fewer retransmits and better utilization of the bandwidth available. A stronger signal is a good thing but if it is dirty well it will not perform well. If you have the Sagemcon or the Arcadyan gateway the only way to get the metrics reporting is with the T-Mobile home internet mobile application on your phone. The bars on the LED screen are very generic and do not tell you much as you probably can tell. If you get 3-5 bars that would be best. Lower well, it is not much to write home about. Knowing the cellular signal band is helpful for understanding and expectations as well. We are rural in east TN and when they bumped us from the n71 to the n41 I had some concerns at first as I have seen numerous users writing about how the n41 was great for a month or so and then went horrible. So far it has been working extremely well. I think they do a better job with the n41 deployments in the rural areas than in a densely populated urban area. In some markets they need more cells than they probably deploy and tend to overload the cells and try to get by with more bandwidth controls. Just my thoughts.