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?
007BondMI6 wrote:
Vigente
Running Time: 51d 5h 20m
Would be another 21 days but I unplug the unit to install a UPS. So that would have been 72 days up.
If you can post your actual signal that would be helpful.
Currently we also have it plugged into a UPS as well.
The last time it was up, this is the results
Primary: Band B2, PCI 466, EARFCN 901
RSRP -118dBm
SNR 1 dB
RSRQ -17dB
RSSI -86dBm
Secondary: Band n71, PCI 262, NR-ARFCN 126270
RSRP -107dBm
SNR -2dB
RSRQ -17dB
This is from the desk in the house without external antennas connected. Signal hasn't improved when attaching Antennas. But also after rebooting the Gateway, it would never connect again.R Wolf wrote:
jtheiss wrote:
18 days of uptime is pretty amazing @jdt254 . If I could get to that, I’d probably just restart the thing once a week just to be sure that we don’t get intermittent faults at times that would impact our work, but at this point, I’m not clearing 24 hours even with a case fan and a router handling the heavy lifting of my home network.
Yes, that would be great if we could get that many days.
At first i thought it was the cooling as well, but adding the recommend fan did not resolve the issue. Thought it was a quality of signal issue which that area can have that, so i added Antennas, made no difference.
I did find out leveraging cellmapper.net that T-Mobile does NOT have their Antennas directed to my area. They have it up and down the interstate but not aimed north or south. This is horrible because many of my neighbors could benefit from this service since DSL is only 1mbps and overpriced or the overpriced satellite service. Literally live 2 miles, straight shot, to the tower but quality of service is horrible. On my roof i can get maybe 25-30m. On the ground, maybe 10.Recently, the service has just dropped completely and hasn't been back up. We are at a week now without resolution. EVen had the Gateway replaced feeling it was a defective Gateway, no resolve.
Considering trying the Orbi (with 4G and external antenna connections) or the POE Powered Elsys Amplimax leveraging the existing SIM card to see IF that resolves the issues.
Because when talking to the support agent from T-Mobile, they said they could see it connecting to the tower. But when i looked in the menus in the Nokia Gateway, it kept saying Not Connection. One of my frustrations is the lack of control for a experience IT specialist in this hardware. Because it would make my life easier if i could see what signal strength the antennas were seeing.
Vigente
Running Time: 51d 5h 20m
Would be another 21 days but I unplug the unit to install a UPS. So that would have been 72 days up.
If you can post your actual signal that would be helpful.
RSRP
SNR
RSRQ
RSSI
For both primary and secondary.
And Band for both.
RSRP the lower the number the better.
SNR higher is better on this one.
RSRQ lower is better.
RSSI lower is better.
jtheiss wrote:
18 days of uptime is pretty amazing @jdt254 . If I could get to that, I’d probably just restart the thing once a week just to be sure that we don’t get intermittent faults at times that would impact our work, but at this point, I’m not clearing 24 hours even with a case fan and a router handling the heavy lifting of my home network.
Yes, that would be great if we could get that many days.
At first i thought it was the cooling as well, but adding the recommend fan did not resolve the issue. Thought it was a quality of signal issue which that area can have that, so i added Antennas, made no difference.
I did find out leveraging cellmapper.net that T-Mobile does NOT have their Antennas directed to my area. They have it up and down the interstate but not aimed north or south. This is horrible because many of my neighbors could benefit from this service since DSL is only 1mbps and overpriced or the overpriced satellite service. Literally live 2 miles, straight shot, to the tower but quality of service is horrible. On my roof i can get maybe 25-30m. On the ground, maybe 10.The Gateway did work great at the beginning. Was good and solid, maybe a random drop out every once in a while. But in the past 6 weeks, it has been dropping MOST of the time. We have had it down more than up recently.
Recently, the service has just dropped completely and hasn't been back up. We are at a week now without resolution. EVen had the Gateway replaced feeling it was a defective Gateway, no resolve.
Considering trying the Orbi (with 4G and external antenna connections) or the POE Powered Elsys Amplimax leveraging the existing SIM card to see IF that resolves the issues. After a call with T-Mobile last week, i told them that they need to determine what is wrong and resolve this in a week otherwise we need to change services because we NEED the internet to be working, especially consistently.
Because when talking to the support agent from T-Mobile, they said they could see it connecting to the tower. But when i looked in the menus in the Nokia Gateway, it kept saying Not Connection. One of my frustrations is the lack of control for a experience IT specialist in this hardware. Because it would make my life easier if i could see what signal strength the antennas were seeing.
I started having issues recently. Was working great, not every so often I have no internet.
Read here that over heating is a common issue. I turned of wifi and connected my Asus router. Hoping this will help.
I am working from home, T-Mobile internet is not reliable and I am getting frustrated every day.
Very disappointed now, stating to consider getting xfinity again.
jtheiss wrote:
@Fredreed I'm still on hold waiting to report this again. I've asked a number of times what they're going to DO to fix this, and asked more than once if they'll send somebody out. I think I'm about a phone call away from cancelling, as this is eating up too much of my time. I don't understand how my cell phone can have a constant internet connection, but a device that's much simpler can't.
So I am in the midst of a week long Home Internet 5g dead signal. Totally agree with this comment about eating up time. Prior to this issue I was seeing upwards of 100mbps speed. Have talked to many support people that I don't understand and they don't understand me. So finally talked with a supervisor that I could understand. He gave me as much info as he could and admitted that they had no idea. Esentially, he said wait a while and hopefully the signal will come back. I make the point that my 5g cell was getting a great signal and 50 to 70mbps speed and didn't understand why the home internet device wasn't working. So he explained that the cell phone can handle multiple bands but the home internet only handled one and if it isn't working then no data. I also have to decide how long I am going to put up with this mess.
RTMay wrote:
I am losing connectivity at least 3-4 times per hour (even more than that sometimes!)
I am very frustrated - thought this would be so much better that what we had before, but I am giving it one more month and if there is no improvement I’m switching back to my old provider - NEVER thought I would say that!
External antennal if you have low signal solved all my issues.
Log into 192.16812.1 and make sure you are rocking the current firmware (say's Software) … 1.2101.00.1609. If not call Tech Support and have them push this update to your Nokia.
Correct placement and orientation also helps, took me months to find the exact best spot, inches can make or break the best connection. I have no alternative ISP so I was forced to learn this the hard way.
Here in Hawaii my Nokia connects to B2 & N71, huge improvement in speed with the 1609 firmware. My previous best speeds were 40 down/10 up ... now those are my absolute minimum speeds. With the built-in WiFi my average is now 80/10. I no longer use the internal WiFi so I turned down the 2.4/5GHz transmission powers to 12%.
I recently added an Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE & WiFi 6 Lite Access point in a double NAT configuration and was surprised to see peaks at 250/70, average 140/40. Until Tmobile gives us bridge mode that's how I roll my Nokia FG-21.
I’m now a happy camper with Tmobile Internet.
this service is terrible it has not worked at all lol . most of you at least get it up and running a little i had someone tell me yesterday that 4g towers will soon cease to be working and that we all will eventually have to move to 5g so here i am with a brand new iphone 12 and a 5g home internet service that doesnt work . my advice to you guys is just return it cause no issues will be fixed coming here or calling to that number
I am losing connectivity at least 3-4 times per hour (even more than that sometimes!)
I am very frustrated - thought this would be so much better that what we had before, but I am giving it one more month and if there is no improvement I’m switching back to my old provider - NEVER thought I would say that!
I'm getting a load balancing router and add another connection. This is ridiculous. tornado season is coming and I need a reliable connection. And if this is not resolved soon I will cancel the service.
