Best way to report home internet problem?

@CStar You are connected to a slower 5G band. Your biggest issue is RSRP and the band. If you can improve your RSRP metrics to near 80 or below and get connected to a n41 tower, your speeds will improve. Also, your SINR shows that your gateway is experiencing a lot of RF from other sources, which reduces your gateways ability to deliver a clean internet signal. 

Have you used the Placement Assistant in the TM Internet app? From the home screen, click on "More about connection quality" > "Launch placement assistant" "OK Lets do this" Play Video (if you like > Share Location - (you may need to manually enter your address). You will see a display that shows the direction of your cell tower. Pick up the gateway and move it to a different room or area of the house, and watch your metrics. Do they improve? Also, because the antennas are built in to the corners of the gateway you may want to rotate the gateway about 1/8th of a turn, stop and measure metrics, and repeat until you get the best metrics/signal.

@CStar I have had TM Home Internet for about 1 year with much success. On occasion, when I do experience hiccups, if I restart the gateway and my wifi access point, then it resolves the issue.

Your download speeds of 150Mbps is good, but your upload speed should be much better (at least 15-20Mbps). 

What are your cellular metrics? You can find them on the TM Internet app > MORE (bottom of screen) > Advanced cellular metrics > 5G: 

RSRQ

RSRP

SINR

BANDA

Sometimes these metrics will give a clue to an ongoing issue.

Please let us know what happens. 

@CStar While I am not a telecomm engineer, my experience is that the metrics are an indicator of upload/download speeds. If you can improve your SINR and RSRP, I am confident that both up and down speeds would improve. 

My metrics are

RSRQ -11

RSRP -71

SINR 40

BAND n41

I added an external antenna to my gateway and the difference is fantastic. Upload usually around 40Mbps and downloads over 100Mbps. There are several tutorials online if you feel comfortable working on computer devices.

@copz1998 , further update.

Given your explanation of what RSRP is, I went around to unplug my gateway and moved it around the home testing various spots, even moving it to the 2nd story to a window closest to the cell tower that I think is being used.

Conclusion: the numbers change a little bit, but not drastically to make a change.

But I did notice a difference in terms of which WiFi network I connect to, which is very odd! Let me explain:

I have a LinkSys mesh router that is hooked up to the T-Mobile gateway via ethernet. The mesh router broadcasts in both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz. Then of course, there's the gateway's own Wifi network which I cannot turn off and I have it broadcasting only in 2.4Ghz. Essentially, there are 2 Wifi networks both of which are going through the T-Mobile gateway.

I notice that the T-Mobile Wifi gets better upload (e.g.,4.97 Mbps  ) than the LinkSys Wifi (e.g., 2.09 Mbps). What gives? Is it possible that the ethernet cable (from LinkSys to T-Mobile gateway) is causing some bit of interference? In the past, I certainly have seen much better download numbers in general.

In any case, I think I'm moving more firmly that this is a cell tower issue? Why? Because of the following things I've discovered:

• When I have my phone use exclusively mobile data (i.e., no Wifi connection), its download speed as tested by SpeedTest is terrible, in the single digits of like 1 Mbps, sometimes just a little higher. This is unusual because in the recent past, the numbers were very good.
• I moved the gateway upstairs to a number of window locations including one that is closest to the cell tower, and the metrics are just about the same.

There’s something going on with the cell towers, or network congestion, or other T-Mobile network issue , it seems.

And now more recently, the download speed as just tested is acceptable towards the 8Mbps range. No idea. Rather uneven. Maybe the person (a visitor to the area?) is running a Crypto farm during the holiday and now is travelling back home and no longer interfering with our T-Mobile. LOL 😂 . Sigh. 😔 

Here is a tutorial from Waveform, and antenna maker: https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-gateway-arcadyan

Here is Nader Nader talking about the Sagemcom which is similar to the Arcadyan 

I hope this helps. 

@copz1998 here are my cell metrics for 5G:

RSRQ: -10

RSRP: -97

SINR: -2

BAND: n71

I can tell you that in the past 3 or so months when I did have reliable and great speeds, the RSRP always reported its status as "Poor" which it still is today. The RSRQ status has always been reported as "Excellent", which it still is today. As such, I couldn't exactly chalk up to these as being the issue.

Anyhow, any insights? I can't figure out how to tell which cell tower my 5G is connected to.

@copz1998 , in the past, I have been able to connect to the faster band (n41). I don't know if they're having cell tower issues therefore this time when I checked it's connected to the n71 band. Regarding the RSRP, that has been "poor" since inception. I have used the placement assistant and while the location I have the gateway positioned may not be the best, it's been the position that it has been in all along.

Yesterday, when I positioned the gateway at the "best" position, it was still receiving a signal of "weak" (indicated by the gateway, and it's 2 signal bars only). That's unusual because in the past, that spot would receive signal of "good". I am pretty sure there's an issue somewhere that's outside of my home and devices, unrelated to the position of where my gateway is.

But, this doesn’t mean, of course, that the gateway doesn’t have to be re-positioned as it is possible something has physically changed at the cell tower.
That said, why would the download speed at this point be so good but the upload speed so paltry?

@copz1998 , I have the T-Mobile Arcadyane gateway. How easy is it to add an external anntenae and which model of external anntenae?

I'll play around with restarting my gateway soon. Thanks for all your help!

Quick update: Without restarting, I just checked my metrics again and it's on n41. Upload is 167 Mbps, download is still a paltry 1.45 Mbps.