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 of 20,000 a ways south of Minneapolis.
I have 2 Galaxy S22 phones and at the moment they're getting about 14-16 Mb/s, which is ALSO what the home internet is getting. BUT, minute to minute, speeds on all the devices fluctuates wildly. It can be 4 Mb/s 1 minute and 15 the next, then back to 2.
I don’t know how accurate or consistent speedtest.net is, so is there a better tool for getting good data on speed?
I did the setup with the phone app. And when I told it to find the tower it pointed North. There aren't any towers I know of that are north, but the app said there was. Since it was next to me, I pointed it North, just in case. Got about 14-16 Mb/s. Turned it East, toward downtown, which is straight through the window in the office and got about 14-16 Mb/s. Turned it south and got about the same. Didn't seem to matter. NO direction EVER produced anything like the number I'm seeing from others in here who aren't happy with 50 or 60 Mb/s.
I put cellmapper on the phone and it pointed directly at the tower downtown - about 300 yards away. So, I put the box in the window pointing down town and got about 12-14 Mb/s.
Moved it to the center of the house so it was between wife and me, and it got about 10-20 Mb/s most of the time. About the same as sitting in the office window on on the desk next to me.
A little while ago I moved it so it’s 10 feet from the wife, pointing out a window directly at the tower and it got about 7 - 10 Mb/s, maxed out around 14 Mb/s.
Both phones and the home Internet all say they’ve got 5G, but unless I’m doing something wrong, this has to be about the slowest 5G around…
Is there anything I should be doing differently? Does pointing the thing toward where I THINK a tower is make any difference? Am I three blocks from the downtown tower and just in some kind of 5G wasteland and out of luck?
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.
I’ve got an 800 number to get me to the “home internet” team, so I’ll try that when I get home in a couple hours.
Last night, from around 7 pm til sometime after 9 pm, the home internet was non-functional. Computers and cell phones couldn't even connect to it. The couple times I DID get the computer to connect download speeds were in the .5 Mb/s (not 5, .5)…
We COULD, in theory, be in some kind of dead zone, but I'm getting different answers from different tools. Cellmapper insists I'm using the tower across the river (East), which is at MOST ¼ mile away. And we're slightly uphill from downtown, so it should be seeing us perfectly. Network Call Info Lite (NCIL) says we're using a tower straight South that's about 5 or 6 blocks - maximum ½ mile. OR, about 7:30 it started saying we're using a tower that's less than 2 blocks - literally down the street. We have clear line of sight to all of them.
This morning, using the speed test in NCIL, from the cell phone I got about 16 Mb/s. Using the wifi into the home Internet I got about 9. And in the last 20 minutes that's dropped to about FIVE Mb/s.
On the other hand, if I switch OFF 5G on the cell phone and do a speed test, I consistently get between 35 and 50 Mb/s, but I have no idea if the Home Internet is smart enough to switch OUT of 5G or if it even can.
At THIS moment (08:15), I had to reconnect to the home internet. Apparently the connection dropped and one of the other data lines took over. BUT, when I reconnected and ran speed test on the computer, I got 60 Mb/s download. If it would do that all the time, I'd be happy. AND from the cell into the home internet I got 48-60 Mb/s. And the cell by itself just showed 250 Mb/s.
Since I’ve been messing with all this for 2 hours, I can absolutely say I was NOT seeing anything like this before just after 8 a.m. I WAS seeing the numbers above - maybe 16 on the phone, about 9 dropping to around 5 on the Home Internet.
What the heck is going on? Just went out and did the same thing with my wife's computer and cell phone. She's getting around 60 Mb/s from the home Internet and 270 from her cell…
And is it going to go back to garbage at 8:30 or 9 a.m. when people start doing whatever?
The behavior you are seeing could very well be due to T-Mobile engineers working on the 5G cells. When they are doing so I have seen the disruptions go on for 3-5 days and then once it is set it usually is improved.
The up/down behavior does seem to fit the profile for when they are working on the equipment. If the cellular equipment that was in that location was Sprint they could be replacing the older gear with newer gear and the disruptions as such are quite common actually. Unfortunately that seems to be how things happen with the rapid expansion of the 5G rollout. In some locations the expansion with existing towers has been completed and in other they continue to push out more coverage. We are in a rural area in east TN with a pasture behind the house and rolling hills as we are in the ridge and valley zone just west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even the cows could have connectivity here.
They really might be still tuning things up. It is worth a call. If you get with a level 1 engineer that just needs to meet the 5 minute call target you might not get the answers you need but if you get with a good level 2 engineer you might actually get some reasonable answers. I had to push for answers with a customer retention expert once and well, that has some advantages. You have to work the system. If Verizion or another carrier in the area is hungry for subscribers letting them know you are considering other options is a reasonable approach. Sometimes we just have to push to get answers and not be put off.
New home internet and T-Mobile customer here in general. We've tried it out for over a week now and we can't stream TV on this. The screen freezes constantly. I unfortunately don't think the internet will work out for us, luckily I didn't cancel my other internet provider yet. Frustrating, since I am now paying for 2 services. I was hoping to get around to calling the internet customer service line and have them try to troubleshoot, as I've done many speedtests and they are all over the place. The most I've gotten was 30+, lowest around 2. That is not good!
If service is really weak like that it could be your location is just not optimal for signal reception or they are still doing upgrades and deployments in the area and coverage is still spotty. It would be worth the call to get more information about coverage in the area. If you have to drop the T-Mobile service for now you are still in the trial period so you should get your money back upon returning the gateway.
Cell Mapper uses ads to fund the service or there is a subscription for $3 CAD/month. If you "Agree" to the terms for the cookies it will allow you to use it but you have to put up with the ads. Once you figure it out it is not any worse than any other. I am on a MacBook Pro and I have cellmapper.net up on Chrome and on Safari. I find i works better on Safari as Chrome tends to not work with the location well. I have not bothered to work that out on Chrome as Safari works fine. When I launch Chrome it always puts me out in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. I must be at the beach in the Canary Islands or something. So, anyway it is in part the blocking by Chrome and Firefox. With Safari I have no major issue using the site even without a subscription.
I can't say they're NOT doing maintenance. But at 7 to after 9 pm on Sunday night?
I got through to T-Mobile and one of the people had me do a couple things I'd already done a bunch of times. Then she told me "they're doing maintenance on a tower in that area". I suspect they're ALWAYS doing maintenance on some tower in that area, but my experience with Visible (Verizon) has left me a bit cynical.
Stopped at the T-Mobile store, where they checked and told me the maintenance was ONLY ON 3G and should have NO effect on 5G. So who's right?
In the end, the ONLY thing T-Mobile came up with was “when the home internet slows down or stops, reboot it”.
Which sounds a LOT like Visible support, only faster ‘cause it’s on the phone instead of “chat”.
The store used a different program to access the home internet box, made some changes and did something with the sim, and confirmed which tower the unit would be using. With that, since I know the tower is to the East, I tried all over the upstairs, including sitting in the farthest East-facing window, so you can look over at the tower about ¼ mile away. No difference no matter where I put it. Gets maybe 30 or Mb/s and that's about it.
Cell phones were consistently 200+ Mb/s this morning. Now they're at about 30 also.
We'll see if things improve. Fortunately, we've got 15 days to take the Home Internet back and we're on day 3.
Sherski311, I feel your pain. I THINK we can stream TV. We were yesterday until there was ZERO bandwidth available about 7 pm. T-Mobile support ASSURED me that was "from the ongoing maintenance".
Speeds here bounce all over the place too, but I’ve got you beat on the low end… We’ve been below ONE Mb/s.
As for my service being "weak". What constitutes weak on the cell phone? Using Network Cell Info Lite on the phone, I have RSRP dBm of -86 - well into the green. RSRQ, dB is -9. RSSNR, db is 15. The map says I'm talking to a tower about a half mile to my south. Speed earlier this morning was over 200 Mb/s. Right now it's 17 Mb/s with a max of about 30.
With the cell phone connected to the home internet, Network Cell Info gives me , on the top gauge display, RSRP dBm of -83 on the "serving Cell", which is "5G(NSA) T-Mobile", -10 RSRQ, dB, RSSNR 15. The bottom display appears to be the Home Internet network and RSRP is -96 to -102, so at the edge of yellow, -20 RSRQ db, and 44 to 52 for ASU. Unfortunately, other than the RSRP dBm, with has red, yellow and green, I don't know if the other numbers are good or bad.
At the moment the Home Internet is sitting IN the window, aimed straight at the tower it's supposedly using. I was told at the T-Mobile store that you actually want the right rear corner pointed at the tower as you're facing the unit (the screen being the front). I've tried it with the front facing the tower and the right rear. Made no difference.
At the moment, performance is mediocre at best, but it's as good as the DSL, which is more expensive, so it's PROBABLY good enough to keep if it doesn't get any worse, or quit completely again. But, at the moment, having had sort-of Verizon when on Visible, T-Mobile is about as good as they were. The only difference I can see so far is you get a person on the phone to tell you why you're getting poor service instead of having to "chat"…
As far as cellmapper, I can't run it on ANY of my Windows browsers. It persists in telling me I've got an ad blocker running no matter what I do. So it's on the cell phone.
The fun continues…
Last evening, with the box in the East facing window upstairs, we both lost connection repeatedly. But, by the time I could get upstairs, it was always up, so I didn't know if it was crashing or just having some kind of fit.
Today, I brought it down and put it in the middle of the house. Doesn't seem to make a BIT of difference WHERE it is as far as speed.
Worked fine this morning. This afternoon, at 3:30, we both lost our connection. And again at 4:35, then at 5:27. At 4:35 and 5:27 I got to the box quickly enough to SEE it saying "Powering Up". Called the T-Mobile store and they had me come over to swap the box.
I started running a monitor this morning, and having it check the downloads every 15 minutes for several hours. Here's the chart/graph:
It ran from about 6 a.m. to about 1:45 this afternoon. Load was extremely light - NO TVs, very little activity from either computer (mine was the ONLY one on the Home Internet. Wife went back to the DSL.
Started at 100 Mbps, Fell drastically by 10 a.m., continued down from there.
I'm going to try to get it to monitor at least 24 hours to see what it shows. And note the time either of us gets disconnected.
Some of the Sagemcon gateways have experienced power related issues where they start doing a reboot rather frequently. Some users have gone through multiple gateways trying to find one that does not have the problem. That would be very frustrating and a huge waste of time. I am just not impressed with the more recent gateways. Only having the mobile application to manage the gateway is a huge negative for me.
With the speed only peaking out around 100 Mbs and then being up/down and continuing to fall on average over time it seems like there is possibly an over subscription for the cell. If you are in an urban area and there are lots of subscribers hitting the same cells it is probably due to bandwidth throttling. The cell phones on the same cells do get priority over the fixed broadband 5G gateways so the fact that the phones get more bandwidth seems to fit the profile for throttling. If they would avoid over loading the cells and provisioning better it would be great but for some reason it does not appear they will take a more protective approach to bandwidth distribution.
Speed dropped in half compared to last week. My guess is lots of new sign-ups.
