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?
I run 2 cameras off it. 2 phones 2 tablets and stream on 2 different tvs at the same time when the service works it works great. But having to reset every day sometimes now 2 to 3 times a day gets a little annoying
heywally wrote:
Have had the device two days and it works great! :) To the point that I have cancelled xfinity internet. Not a great test period, agreed, but ….
Seem to have the latest black box, looks new, 4 bars signal strength. Good cell phone signal strength out and about in the neighborhood. We also recently switched cell service from Verizon to T-Mobile.
Speed test varies a bit with the box but generally can get up to 200-300 plus, download.
However, with a boatload of computer hardware/software diagnosing experience in hand, I will not spend a lot of time working with support if I start developing drops, I will just dump the service and go crawling back to Comcast.
Update: I'm actually getting up into the 400-500 range at times. Even when it was showing 40-50 mbps the other night during prime time streaming, everything was running great. It's just me and my wife here in a one story house, with not much concurrent device use. All of our devices, Roku box, iPhones, laptops, iPads, are late models that run fast.
I will update this in a month ….
Have had the device two days and it works great! :) To the point that I have cancelled xfinity internet. Not a great test period, agreed, but ….
Seem to have the latest black box, looks new, 4 bars signal strength. Good cell phone signal strength out and about in the neighborhood. We also recently switched cell service from Verizon to T-Mobile.
Speed test varies a bit with the box but generally can get up to 200-300 plus, download.
However, with a boatload of computer hardware/software diagnosing experience in hand, I will not spend a lot of time working with support if I start developing drops, I will just dump the service and go crawling back to Comcast.
Mine usually disconnects about 3 or 4 am. When I get up have to reconnect the unit by restarting it every single morning now that I have had 1 year of flawless service.
I'm also desperately trying to move away from Xfinity and was so excited to get the email that T-Mobile Home Internet was finally available at my address. Immediately set up the equipment after delivery, and was happy to see that with the gateway in an upstairs window, I get five full bars of connection on my gateway. But, even though I've only had the service for two days, I think I'm going to have to return it. I'm getting the same performance issues everyone else is - in the morning 7:00-ish, I can't even get a wireless connection on any device. Then twenty minutes later I'll test it at 300 Mbps download. Ten minutes later it's back to .2 (yes, point 2) Mbps download. All of this is with "Excellent" or "Very Good" connections on the gateway. This is unusable as I work from home. I also called Tech support, who told me I have two towers close-by and that they may be working on them right now. Sounds like everyone on this thread may all coincidentally have people working on their towers right now. The connection is faster and more consistent in the night, but unfortunately I use it most during the day. Too bad...I REALLY wanted this to work. I'll try it again in another year. Until then it's back to high prices at Comcast.
Yeah idk I went 1 year no issues now I am constantly every 24 hrs having to reset my network. Kinda funny how there is no issues or very few issues during your first year and as soon as you start on your second year problems arise that wasn't there before that now no one can fix
I have had TM internet for over a year now. I had maybe 1 connection drop in the first 6 months. Then it got to be a twice a month occurrence, now it's 5-6 times a day. At least I know now it's not just my service. Hopefully it's either gateway design or firmware issue that they can get this worked out.
Yeah this issue hasn't cleared up its now every morning have to reset and sometimes a couple times a day. I wish I knew what changed from my first year of service which was flawless to now 1 year 3 months and have crap service
I was having the router drop the cellular connection, while showing good signal, sometimes three times a day, often during a telework meeting. I began tracking how often I power cycled the hotspot. I had two occurrences on 6/3/22, singles on 6/5, 6/10, 6/18, and 6/20. And then as of 6/22 this problem cleared up. I'm in Houston TX, in case T-Mobile fixed by infrastructure instead of firmware update.
Same problem here. Have had home Internet for almost a year with no problems. In the past two weeks, Internet drops one to two dimes a day. 9 pages of this and still no solution. I'm not going to waste time calling support. We haven't changed a thing. Maybe the dual\triple NAT and abysmal lack of settings are finally causing problems with updates from Windows and other hardware. I don't know. But if this continues I'm going to take a peek at Verizon's Home Internet and read some reviews.
