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 called T-mobile with my issue and everything checked out. No outages in my area, nothing he could see at his end, and I had already rebooted, and reset the unit. They sent me out a replacement the very next day. It is working a little better, but does kick out a few times a day for anywhere between 10-30 seconds at a time. So I'll give it a bit more time, but if it continues, I'll be forced to stick with xfinity. I'D DEEPLY REGRET THAT. PLEASE TMO, FIX. IT ORIGINALLY WORKED FLAWLESSLY FOR OVER 2 MONTHS.
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 would to have this that maybe it’s not the device that is having problems but maybe possibly something could be blocking the signal from the tower to the router or maybe the tower is having problems with getting the signal to the router.
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.
@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
jdt254 wrote:
If you can't get any help from T-Mobile's support staff, take your complaint to the FCC (see my signature for a link to their complaint department). If the FCC accepts it, they'll forward your complaint to T-Mobile who has to respond to your issues. I'm still in the middle of my own complaint without much change in T-Mobile's behavior, but it did give me a chance to speak with someone from T-Mobile's Office of the President. Still waiting to see the results of my pestering, but if they think they're going to blow me off that easy, they're underestimating the stubbornness of a pissed off consumer, haha.
Love this idea of the FCC!
Update: I can now confirm that if I leave the trashcan off for ~5 minutes, the netgear does not need to be powered off during trashcan’s startup.
4 days with the T-Mobile 5G Home Internet router, with about 5 hours uptime. Initial setup went smooth added about 5 devices to test. I moved the device to another location and fine for a couple hour and everything disconnected .
What i noticed was that the battery was 100% charged when it disconnected, after reboot the device came back on says was connected, but was not. Reboot several times same issue (connected but not). No w-fi broadcast or direct router to PC connection working.
Overnight left router on discharged to 85%. Next afternoon. Turn off for 1 hour, reboot same issue. and once plugged in to power, the battery did not show a charging status.
Discharged the battery down to 77%, powered back up and got a message as in the initial setup. The battery status showed charging and was able to connect with direct connection to PC. My setup rename was still there and was able to connect my other device to WiFi.
Once the battery charge status hit 100% everything disconnected once again.
I commonly have 15 devices reported as connected to this GW and have had around 23-24 reported when I was setting up additional clients. I can't say I have seen significant heat for sure. This one is hardware version 3TG00739AAAA. I don't know if maybe it is a hardware revision that might be responsible for the behavior maybe. I have never seen this one report an alarm for over temp. I even put it out on the back porch in 88 degree weather for hours and it ran warmer but did not report any issue with over heating. It was warmer than what I have seen it but it continued to run. I see no evidence of a fan but there are two pretty good sized heat sinks on the components. Too bad the HTML software does not have any reporting for temperature. The software seems to be missing many necessary troubleshooting features currently.
