5G home internet keeps dropping

JHB wrote:

We had the same issues with our 5G gateway device. We had only 2 bars which was supposed to be enough for a signal, however, when we had a signal our service was extremely slow and it was constantly dropping completely. We contacted customer support, went through all the troubleshooting with engineering (checking the signal, switching towers, moving the device around, etc). Finally, requested T-Mobile reactivate our previous device (the 4G LTE small white box).  Solved the problem instantly, strong signal, good speed, no drops, no problem streaming. After reactivating and connecting the 4G LTE Gateway the tech essentially admitted that the new 5G service is essentially a work in progress and isn't up and running smoothly.  He said they are working on it and would contact us to upgrade our hardware to 5G when it was functioning properly in our area. Hope this is helpful.

 

I have all the same problems. Internet disconnects all the time.

I am having same issue critical "modem chip down". It reboots itself every few minutes and lost internet connection. I've tried 3 different grey gateway and all doing the same. At this point, I  do not know what to do as they are not knowing how to solve this!

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?

My Q-Link ZTE 5G phone is worthless. It can neither make nor receive calls within my home because of metal siding and the settings show it is connected to my router but still cannot make or receive a call. Completely unreliable.

Is this happening to anyone with a strong signal, or is it just weak signal folks? 

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last night with a very nice and seemingly honest tech person who basically told me that based on my location, the salesperson had no business selling me the 5G home internet service. I was getting two bars max, and speeds were all over the place--from around 40 Mbps all the way up to around 300 Mbps, but rarely. Very erratic. Then the whole connection would be lost after about an hour, and I'd have to unplug the device and plug it back in. Super frustrating. As it turns out, in my case the signal is just too weak, even though the tower is only about .7 miles away to the northwest and I am up on a hill. Pushing back a bit, I discovered from the tech person that upgrades are scheduled to come to the tower in my area in May/June. I'm guessing the salesperson figured I'd spend a few months trying to figure out the problem until the tower is upgraded; then everything would be okay. Anyway, I asked if I could get the 4G LTE device in the meantime, and she said they are no longer offering that. So, I asked if there was a way to adjust the settings of the device only to grab the 4G signal, and she said I could go to 192.168.12.1 and use the admin login credentials on the device tag and set it to 2.4 GHz and not 5 GHz. She did not seem sanguine that this would solve my problem, and I couldn't even login to the device anyway, so I just gave up. They are temporarily suspending my account while I hang on to the device. The tech person said she would personally call me back when the tower is upgraded, and we can try again. We'll see. I'd be gone and would never come back to T Mobile if it wasn't for this nice, honest tech person. I wish I could remember her name. She needs a promotion.  

Could I make a recommendation to T Mobile as well? There are tons of videos on YouTube about how to take you 5G device apart and hot wire it with an external antenna. Why not just put an external antenna jack on the device and offer an external antenna package for additional cost to customers who have connection issues?

T-Mobile keeps records of calls and usually will provide a ticket number. If you made another call they could look up the information based upon your account information as they record pretty much everything. 

That is good you reached a personable support person that really wanted to help out. I had a similar experience so I know there are some good ones and some that are just clueless. If you have the Arcadyan router vs. the Nokia the configuration options are very limited in the Arcadyan so support needs to ramp up on their game to target what they say to each customer. 

The problem is what to do in the interim for internet service if you want to stay with T-Mobile and avoid any sort of contract that ties you up. Sort of between a rock and a hard spot.

Average speeds with 3 bars on 5g

An update - after receiving new modem router and positioning it to a different location. I was up and running for 18 days straight before needing to reset.

Then went for 10 days and had to reset.

Would also like to point out that I disconnected my Hughes Hub. As another poster mentioned anything sending out a Wi-Fi signal in your home will certainly affect the system.

I did get a new one maybe it's because I've Traveled  to the Philippines and partied there ha . I know everyone wants to use their nighthawk which I paid $300 for and now it's just sitting on a shelf unplugged  -  try using just the modem router from T-Mobile if possible  - I had no luck until I unplugged all the WiFi apparatuses which is probably not cool but it did work

On my ninth day without rebooting this go round 18 days prior.