Forum Discussion
Brand new to home Internet and hoping to improve speed
I read a bunch of the horror stories in here, but decided to try T-Mobile's home internet anyhow 'cause I ALSO read some of the "I get 200+ Mb/s and it NEVER drops below 100" topics. I'm in a town o...
If you get the PCI value you can search for it on CellMapper.net and locate the tower that serves that signal out. With a 4G LTE / 5G NR capable phone it should be possible to obtain the cellular metrics for both signals. The bars on the LED screen are rather generic and do not provide enough information. It does not sound like you are receiving a 5G signal with those speeds or it is a very poor signal reception.
You state you are using CellMapper on your phone so are you looking at 4G or 5G signaling or both?
With CellMapper.net in a browser you can provide your area code to get the general location and then display 4G LTE, 5G NR, or both. I find filtering for one or the other helpful. You will see more 4G LTE towers and IF the 5G cell you receive is on the map that really helps but CellMapper is not 100% as it does rely upon users using the Android application and uploading the findings to the server to have the data installed into the database. This does require an account but it does not cost anything to set up. CellMapper seems to be one of the best resources for locating the cells still. Below is a chart that will help you determine more about your cellular signals. Use the T-Mobile home internet mobile application on your phone to see the cellular metrics. Determine if you really are receiving a functional 5G signal.
You have the replacement Sagemcon but the signal degradation in the middle of the night is still pretty abysmal. It is hard to say. I have seen users go from one Sagemcon to another then another and then another looking for one that does not have the power/rebooting issue. I am not sure what that is all about as we will never know. I did have a conversation in the community with another user that had the 5G gateway and it was having much the same behavior with respect to signal being unpredictable. He had the conversation with T-Mobile about the 4G vs the 5G and they provided the 4G gateway I sent you the information on. His 4G was better and more consistent than the 5G and he was offered the option to return to the 5G gateway after the upgrades were completed.
That is still not to say there could still not be some disruptions with the 4G LTE as I know they have been converging the 4G and 5G over the same infrastructure. There was a recent article that suggested they have done that. Previously the two "solutions" were not on the converged cloud architecture. From what I can see my iPhone 12 Pro only obtains an IPv6 address. The home gateways obtain both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. T-Mobile does use the 464XLAT as their network is IPv6. I would guess the 4G LTE gateway would run both IPv4 and IPv6 with the 464XLAT commonly referred to as carrier grade NAT but it is actually translation of IPv4 to/over IPv6 and then back to IPv4. There does also seem to be some delivery via IPv6 and phones use the IPv6 for data delivery. If the services run native IPv6 it is actually a simpler way to get the job done. I know it looks more imposing but actually it is not.
Still I would say discuss the 4G LTE and ask to talk to a customer retention specialists. I once got to one via the chat once I got past the chatbot. The initial chat agent was not but I was passed up the food chain. If they are concerned about customer retention they will talk with you. I think it would be a good concession. If they would allow you to sit on the 5G unit and send the 4G LTE gateway and have you just swap the SIM or send the 4G LTE with a SIM installed it would be a good way to examine the service delivery a little better. The one thing that still is concerning is that even if the 5G signal source was down the 4G LTE should do better than what was recorded. The 4G LTE has been around a long time and is mature. The behavior might still be due to the "converged" 4G/5G infrastructure. I found the article with a quick search. Is it working all over as intended? hum...
