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?
Mine drops almost daily (sometimes more) and has consistently done so for 4 months now. I am on my third gateway and all devices are connected to a router which is plugged in to the gateway, so it only has the wired connection. Like everyone else in this thread, T-mobile support has given the same excused (tower maintenance). So far I have not found anything that prevents it, but restarting always solves it. So aggravating. I guess I'll be moving back to Comcast soon.
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 am having the same problem. They have sent a new unit and it is doing the same exact thing. My tmobile disappears completely. I tried everything as you have , no luck. I am ready to give up. Please let me know if you figured it out. Gracias.
This is important issue.This happens with me too. I get great speeds but then this disconnect. Can happen couple tines per day. Its a pain to reboot it. I doubt this is a hearing issue because it does not get very hot. Rebooting would result in same heat status but it works fine immediately after reboot. i moved my spectrum service slowly over to the Tmobile service with increased devices and I think it has gotten worse so I actually think this is a Tmobile back end problem and they my even be rebooting theoretical system multiple times per day because it is overloaded. i do have another router connected but this makes no difference as everything disconnects. Not a signal problem as I always her 2-3 bar and have never seen it less than 2. The router communicates with tmobiles servers and this is causing a software freeze with disconnect??? If so they do need to fix it. (I have the newer silver round tower)
Kudzu07 wrote:
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 am also having this issue. I am on my third 5g Gateway, tried switching SIM cards, use a cooling fan and off-loaded the WiFi duties to a Netgear Nighthawk. I get two to three bars and drop a few times a day. I finally bought connection monitoring software and it reports that, when the network fails, "URL domain names are not being resolved but IP based traffic is still flowing over the connection". It seems that, after a minute or two in this state, the box resets the connection resulting in a new IP address. Just figured I'd share that!
Ya it's definitely not wifi related. There is some kind of backend authentication that seems like it's periodically hiccuping and loosing auth for about 5-10 secs
Well, I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised that my internet dropping problem seems to have been resolved. My gateway has held a connection without dropping for 19d 1h 31m. Perhaps there was a firmware upgrade that fixed the repeated dropouts or maybe the "tower maintenance" argument was legit. The current firmware I show is 1.2103.00.0338. Anybody else experience a similar result?
I have the Nokia GW running 1.2103.00.0338, HW Version: 3TG00739AABB.
I started graphing the signal strength of the LTE and 5G radios.
Starting a couple weeks ago the 5G channel drops and comes back randomly throughout the day, causing packet loss and latency.
My T-Mobile 5G phone shows no issues.
I also noticed that the GW is running hot even though it is not in direct sunlight.
Have also tried disabling the on-board WiFi and just using my mesh wifi connected via ethernet to no avail.
I have it sitting in a window with virtually direct line-of-site to the nearest tower half a mile away.
Super frustrating as it was working fine until recently, other than the 5G channel would drop occasionally and only come back with a hard reboot. I have not tracked SW updates so I'm not sure if maybe a recent one caused this issue.
RESOLUTION FOUND; NOT GOOD. SO, I was experiencing network drop issues and saw how some callers had reached out to tech chat. Tech chat advised them to put a fan to cool the gateway down. I ran a test to see if it's a heating issue. And IT IS. I have a small fan I used (picture attached) for the test. Without it, the gateway would drop signal down to 1gb or below and cause me to lose connection to my work calls which is a BIG NONO if I want to stay Work-From-Home. With it, I maintain speeds of 300+mb/s. With that said, I really hope this new router they are coming out with addresses this issue. The trash(can) gateway right now can't handle the data coming in and the heat produced by the data flow causes it to overheat. The gateway does have vents at the top and bottom so I can push the heat out of the gateway with a fan. However, now I'm using extra electricity to cool the gateway down and now I don't enjoy the extra air blowing on me. It's still winterish (54°F) , so I don't know if this trick will work in the summertime where it can get 70°+ in my room. Hopefully, the new router will be a good exchange (FOR FREE) AND they release it soon; otherwise, I will have to go back to exp Verizon.
Similar to others, I am having dropped internet on my Gateway. When it's connected, I'm very happy with my service. The problem is that it drops during important Zoom calls.
My computer is hard wired to the Gateway via ethernet and during Zoom calls I disable the computer's wifi. When it disconnects, I quickly turn my Gateway off and back on. Can rejoin the Zoom call within 2 minutes. The disconnects are inconsistent. Sometimes I won't have any. Sometimes I've had it happen once per hour.
Here is a screenshot of my signal info:
I've read most of the responses on this thread regarding over heating and also using Cellmapper. How can I use this information to zero in on the problem and what can I do about it?
My service drops out multiple times a day. In each instance, there is a message on the gateway that the modem chip is down. I'm already on my second device after the first one also displayed the same message. The gateway is on a timer so it reboots once a day at 3am. It makes no difference. Is any one else getting the "modem chip down" critical message?
So there’s no way to force the 5G Gateway to only connect to 4G?
