Forum Discussion
5G home internet keeps dropping
I'm having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line. I've had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network. When I say "drop the network," I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it's broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says "no network found. (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.) Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn't prevent it from happening again. Whatever is happening doesn't seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won't just disconnect randomly.
To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway's wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.) They've sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact). I've noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it's an issue with the device overheating. However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting. The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together. Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the "heavy lifting" of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it? I don't have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I'm running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.
Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?
jtheiss wrote:
I'm having a problem with T-Mobile 5g home internet that has not been resolved despite many calls in to the help line. I've had T-Mobile 5g home internet for almost a month now, and the short version is that every so often the gateway drops the network. When I say "drop the network," I mean to say it throws everything off of the Wifi that it's broadcasting, and anything plugged in via ethernet says "no network found. (To elaborate this point, cell phones switch to cellular data because wifi is gone for them, and computers hardwired into the gateway think that they are no longer plugged into anything.) Turning off the gateway and turning it back on resolves the issue, but doesn't prevent it from happening again. Whatever is happening doesn't seem to affect our connection speed/strength when the gateway IS providing signal to devices in the home, but due to the nature of our work, we need a connection that won't just disconnect randomly.
To address this, T-mobile has so far run a bunch of tests on their end, and seem to have ruled out a tower issue (which makes sense, as the tower shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not the devices on the gateway's wifi or ethernet connection get thrown off of the network.) They've sent me a replacement gateway, which is experiencing the exact same problem (3 times in the last 36 hours, in fact). I've noticed that the device gets pretty warm, so I set up a computer case fan as a cooler to force air through the device, thinking that perhaps it's an issue with the device overheating. However, while the gateway is notably cooler than it was without the fan, it has not prevented the issue from persisting. The last thing that I can think to do (and my most recent attempt at resolving this issue) is to plug a router into the gateway via ethernet, and allow the router to handle the wifi/connections w/ devices in the house, and to disable wifi from the gateway all together. Maybe the gateway is simply too overburdened with connections and gets somehow overwhelmed and shuts down, and having the router handle the "heavy lifting" of taking care of all of the individual device connections will resolve it? I don't have a great deal of faith that this will fix the issue (as the gateway also kicks ethernet things off of the network when it experiences this problem), but I'm running out of options/ideas of what to do in order to just get a stable, constant internet service.
Is anybody else having this issue, has anybody resolved this issue, or does anybody have any advice or feedback regarding how I might get this resolved so that I can get back to having stable internet?
I'm having the same issue. I thought it was because we had too many devices (Xbox, firestick, 3 iPhones). I plan to contact T-Mobile tomorrow.
@jtheiss - I'm curious to know if both the gateways behaved identically. That is, were you running the cooling fan on both of them? Same exact failure mode, etc? Even if not, there are enough variables in any design that if the problem is with a voltage regulator, for example, many other components "could" be affected differently due to varying component sensitivities to low voltage conditions. This could lead to a difference in failure modes in something as complex as a combination gateway / wireless router. The fact that a Tech Support person offered the fan solution and was surprised that it didn't fix the problem is significant. I've worked in companies where products have known and fixable design issues and management decided to ignore the issue after a cost / benefit analysis. And of course we've all heard the horror stories about the auto industry. Thanks for your input.
FJ
Yeah, I still suspect it's possible the issue was heat related. The one person I talked to at Tmobile that was most helpful ("Haley") suggested that putting a fan on it is her #1 suggestion, and was surprised when my setup w/ fan didn't resolve the issue. My gateway (well, both as I was sent a replacement within the first couple of weeks) was out of direct sunlight, sitting in a 3d printed stand which really forced air through it w/ an attached PC case fan constantly on high, and the issue still persisted with complete loss of function multiple times a day. Despite the fan, I could still feel a small amount of constant heat coming off of the top of the unit, so I question what kind of poor design is happening as no modem/router/cell phone I've ever had has shut down due to heat quite like that… I really question if actually COOLING the unit (ie, colder than ambient air) is the only way to make it viable due to the design, or putting it in a basement where air is naturally cooler (but signal would be poorer). For me however, I ended up sending it back and signing up with a competing ISP. I hope Tmobile gets their stuff together, as I'd love for some healthy competition to show up in neighborhoods without any other options!
I think it's a thermal issue, and that's likely why T-Mob hasn't fixed it. My gateway had required a reboot almost daily. It behaved similarly to other accounts here in that my connection speed would drop to almost nothing (say 400kbps down) which to a person used to over 50mbps would look like a hard crash, but I haven't seen that yet. My best speed is 60mbps down and I'm delighted if I can sustain 10. Per speedtest, when the problem manifests I see a slight increase in latency but a massive increase in packet jitter, sometimes approaching a full second. Rebooting the gateway clears this condition. Now, thanks to a couple of astute posts here, I decided to test the heat theory. Placing a hand over the unit during normal operation I didn't detect much heat coming out, but when I placed it over an A/C duct directly beneath the sill it had been on, I felt a gush of almost hot air come out the top. This is extremely suspicious and tells me that the convective cooling the EE's had counted on isnt happening. My gateway hasnt required a reset since i moved it to the top of that a/c vent 4 days ago. There's probably a good reason the installation manual mentions not placing the gateway in direct sunlight and I wonder if the manual's been edited in that regard. I hope others here will replicate and report the heat test. Perhaps then T-Mob will stop stonewalling this issue.
Well, it's now disconnected for the 3rd time today, which is a record. I have a 12v computer case fan that's running 24/7 in attempt to cool the device, and I can't imagine trying to intentionally lower the speed of the modem to try to get it to cooperate. As it is, we don't do online gaming or 4k streaming, so it's not like we're even really pushing it to perform. I guess T-Mobile 5g isn't quite ready to roll out in our area, which is very unfortunate as our area is otherwise ruled by a monopoly by spectrum.
It sounds like you're getting a 5G signal which might mean your device is running even hotter...especially if the signal is not the best. Someone linked to this YouTuber before but he's got a lot of great videos on this device. This one shows that adding some weather stripping can cool the device even more.
There are several other videos that cover getting a better signal. I remember him saying that some people get a better signal with the device on its side. What I'm remembering for your scenario is that in one video I believe he talked about covering the device with aluminum foil in order to block your device from connecting to a particular tower or signal. I'm wondering if you could use that technique to block the 5G signal and stick with a 4G signal instead.
So after another hour and 45 minutes on the phone, it was another "turn it off and back on," more promises that they're going to fix it right away, and yet another mention that the engineering team should get back to me about it very soon. It's pretty obvious that they don't really know what the problem is, and may not be capable to fix it at this time. I suspect I'll have to pursue another ISP if I want stable internet.
I'm having the same problem. The first month we had no issues. We had great service and connection quality. For the last two weeks we have had a lot of problems without changing anything. Throughout the day we reset it the unit more than hourly. Our phones have great signal but the internet unit drops out. It's very disrupting and if it persists, we will need to change providers. We will get service from the provider that give us good service.
