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.
The local store just opened a week ago, so they're not swamped yet. But, they also don't have any of the "old" equipment. The only Home Internet thing they have is the one I've got - the 5688W.
SO FAR today, the speed hasn’t gotten “BAD”… Other than the two very low outliers, speeds have stayed above 20 Mbps. NOT great by any stretch, but about as good as the 17-year-old DSL.
We’ll see what it does this evening when things normally compost.
I would guess you could try it and it would either work or not but should not hurt anything. Those Netgear Nighthawk M1 LTE routers had a pretty decent reputation. I would not be surprised if it didn't work unless they only allow their gateways and do a check. Is the SIM the same size. I think that is a nano SIM as I recall? If the numbers are back to the flakey that is not a good sign. I seem to recall those at one point were also capable of coverage for the T-Mobile bands. That is one consideration of any modem is if it supports the frequency bands for the carrier.
It might be surprising if the store actually has the 4G LTE gateway on hand. Try to get an appointment before you go in. Save yourself time. You never know when a wave hits.
I've got to stop at the local T-Mobile anyhow, so I'll ask if they have any of the 4G units… I'm also planning to give T-Mobile a call and see how cooperative they want to be… Would they like some money for home Internet or none? And a customer that says good things about them or not? I'd have been more confident a few years ago, but VERY few companies seem to care at ALL about their reputations these days. I guess they all figure there's a dozen customers to replace every one that leaves.
A THIRD option my wife asked about… In THEORY, my Netgear Nighthawk M1 is unlocked (long story, predecessor of Visible that went belly up). If so, I could pull the SIM out of the other box and put it in there. That's a 4G device, and it has always worked really well on AT&T. I ALSO have a MIMO antenna for it, so potentially it could work fine.
Unfortunately, I’m FAR from being an expert at any of this so I don’t know if I could even get the Nighthawk working with T-Mobile.
SO FAR, today, speeds are MOSTLY holding at around 40 Mbps on the 5688, but I’m starting to see numbers like 1.8 and .22 Mbps show up in some results.
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...
Seems worth looking at, if possible.
I’ve tried to find anything online about deactivating 5G in the FAST 5688W, but haven’t found anything.
Another open, though one I wouldn’t try since it would void the warranty, would be to open the unit and disconnect the 5G antenna - I presume that would get it to use LTE, but don’t know for sure.
pphw, as far as the speed drop, I don't know. I didn't get the box 'til Saturday night, so I don't know what it was like before Sunday, which was dreadful, but MAY have been partially caused by the box rebooting frequently…
Here’s the chart and the numbers for the last 14 hours:
Starting shortly after 7 pm last evening when I started the monitor, it fell into the toilet (take a look at the numbers below), and didn't even get to the dismal point til around 11:30 pm. Then it stayed lousy ALL NIGHT… What would be causing it to be so wretched overnight when there CAN'T be that many people playing Fortnite or streaming porn? Then SUDDENLY between 5:30 and 6 a.m. it jumps to better… And starts sliding back down, but at 9 a.m. it's still at 50, which is at least usable… The monitor is still running so I should have something for at least 24 hours. Any thoughts?
They do have the 4G - TM-RTL0102 LTE WiFi Gateway
The one advantage it has over the Arcadyan or Sagemcon is that it does have a web GUI driven management interface. The RTL0102 does share that characteristic that the Nokia 5G gateway has.
If the 5G is not working you might get them to provide one of the 4G LTE Gateways just to see the difference. It actually might work out in the location where you are until they get the 5G proper. Talking to a customer retention specialists is probably the way to move on that if you do.
I don’t think here would qualify as urban - town is about 20,000 people.
Is the "Sagemcon gateway" the black box that says "FAST 5688W" that's on the shelf next to me? If so, what's the alternative for home Internet on T-Mobile that WILL work?
I have to admit, so far T-Mobile seriously hasn't covered themselves in glory. The Home Internet is slow, the cell phones aren't bad, though on 5G they're USUALLY not much, if any, faster than the HI. Though, when they switch to LTE or I switch them out of 5G they're between 5X and 10X faster than the 5G.
Unfortunately, according to the T-Mobile store, I CANNOT do the same thing with the Gateway - change it so it DOESN’T use 5G and uses LTE instead.
Anyhow the monitor is running, so I’ll see what it looks like in the morning - I suspect it runs adequately around 2 a.m.
Speed dropped in half compared to last week. My guess is lots of new sign-ups.
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.
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.
