Connected, No Internet

Our engineers mentioned your device is connecting correctly to our towers; however, they are working on optimizing the area and this could cause issues like you are experiencing. This will be resolved soon, and your service will stabilize.

T-Mobile should figure it OUT. The statement made above should be sent to known users in a given area prior to work on equipment. Customers would be more satisfied IF they were informed vs. fighting with the routers and having lots of frustration and speculating possible solutions. Here where I live we went through the same experience back in June. There was a week of repeated disruptions and calls to T-Mobile support ONLY to be informed about the work on the tower after the second to third call. Does that promote customer satisfaction or loyalty? Heck no! It just shows how T-Mobile does not have a proper handle on their support initiative. Support is taking a back seat to reaching out for the dollars from subscribers. Well, I worked customer support for 22 years and the company I worked for did NOT do it this way. We took support serious and always tried to maintain a proactive approach to customer support. T-Mobile needs to reflect a mature corporate posture in the environment to play with the big boys and be successful. They need people in key positions in support that KNOW how great customer support works. 

Happy customers stay customers. Bad news travels faster than good news. It is truth.

Ours is running the current software version above.

We tried a reset (went through the entire setup process again).

And again, within 30 minutes, received the 'Connected, no internet' message from all of our devices.

So frustrating, as we were starting to think TMobile Home Internet was a viable alternative to cable (the only other alternative in our area).

We will try reaching out to T-Mobile.

Well, I’m checking out.

It turns out, T-Mobile will not refund the monthly autopay once you're past the 90-day mark. And, while there is a "suspend" option on the account, that would cost me $10 a month for no service at all. I might as well take a ten dollar bill and put it in the shredder once a month.

Given the numerous topics on this community forum reporting loss of internet access, the picture is becoming clearer. If I had to guess, I'd say T-Mobile oversold the internet service and found themselves in a bind when they discovered they had insufficient capacity. Not wanting to hurt their mobile phone business, they have had no choice but to cut off their internet gateway customers. "Problems associated with tower work in your area" is merely a fabricated excuse in most cases.

In my case, a so-called engineer's report traced my service interruption to being in a poor coverage area. Not only is this nonsensical (because I get three bars on the gateway device and the service worked great for ten months), it also makes it clear that they have no intention of fixing the problem. Never mind that I was told at the time of signup that I was in range of their cell towers and that my projected usage (2-person household, primarily video streaming and online shopping) was exactly the kind of traffic for which the system was designed.

It's been a disappointing experience. T-Mobile can certainly expect that I will not be recommending any of their products to anyone. Also, I'm sure the FCC will be interested in their questionable practices.

Good luck, folks.

I’m in Oklahoma and have been having the same issue, it is connected then it goes down then comes back up, it goes through this cycle about every 10 minutes or so, this is not a software issue as I have the newest modem they offer, I have done several factory resets and the issue still persists, I like the service but this is getting ridiculous, we as paying customers should be given an update on the issue that is consistent across CSR’s in T-Mobile, it’s really frustrating when you talk to four or five different reps and there answers are all different so we know the didn’t actually take the time to read notes or research into the problem, also we as customers would like to know if a fix is being put into place and a time frame, T-mobile has a big issue with there lazy customer service reps and there internet.

The Samsung Z Fold 3 has a known network connection issue. The issue started with the latest Android 12 software update. There is a fix, as of February 18, that is supposed to correct the issue. And, as far as I have learned, you need to wait to receive the updated fix in order to correct it. In the mean time, changing your Network mode from 5G down to LTE 3G and turning on WiFi calling will help temporarily. 

Well, actually…

I too have been experiencing loss of internet here in Ft Lauderdale.  I made contact with T-Mobile on Twitter and after a few days got this response:

Our engineers mentioned your device is connecting correctly to our towers; however, they are working on optimizing the area and this could cause issues like you are experiencing. This will be resolved soon, and your service will stabilize 😊.

No relocation of Gateway or adding a cooling fan is expected to help.  No definition of how long "soon" would be.  I am getting ready to cut off Comcast, but now thinking twice.

RogerD954 wrote:

Well, actually…

I too have been experiencing loss of internet here in Ft Lauderdale.  I made contact with T-Mobile on Twitter and after a few days got this response:

Our engineers mentioned your device is connecting correctly to our towers; however, they are working on optimizing the area and this could cause issues like you are experiencing. This will be resolved soon, and your service will stabilize 😊.

No relocation of Gateway or adding a cooling fan is expected to help.  No definition of how long "soon" would be.  I am getting ready to cut off Comcast, but now thinking twice.

This started happening to me this morning in the metro-Boston area. The gateway web page (http://192.168.12.1/web_whw/#/overview) shows connected to primary and secondary with 3 bars, green check on "Internet connected", devices connected to Wifi, but every 30 minutes or so, the ability to access the internet vanishes. This is a progression of steady worsening over time. I had the trash can running for 2 months with no issues, then a few weeks ago started having to reboot it once per week, then 3 times so far this morning. If their SOP is to "optimize" during the workday and make the network unusable during that time, then this has gone from "so much better than Comcast" to "Guess I should reconnect the Comcast so I can work".

Same issues here.  I still have a good connection with the Tower but No Internet.  A power cycle on the Can will bring back the Internet.  Seems to happen more often if wife is watching a movie on TV and I start surfing the Internet.  This is my second Trash Can and they both had the same problem.  Download vary from 120Mbs in AM to 30Mbs in the PM.  Uploads have always been slow,  4Mbs if I'm connected to B66 and less than 2Mbs on B2.  I'm testing a VOIP phone service and it works great but afraid to cut off land lines until this stabilizes. That being said, it's better than DSL for sure but I wish they would get it fixed.

K4VW - Which GW do you have? The Nokia or the Arcadyan? If the 4G LTE signal source is changing bands what about the 5G NR signal? Does it also change? I am guessing both change. When you have the internet working with each 4G LTE signal check the PCI values for ambos 4G and 5G. I believe with the Arcadyan seeing the PCI values would be possible with the mobile application. With the Nokia I prefer to use the browser from my MacBook Pro. If you have a client that you can connect to the wired Ethernet vs. the WIFI when the internet is reported down just try to ping 9.9.9.9 or any DNS server on the internet and the gateway IP 192.168.12.1. Do both the wired & wireless fail or not? You need to look at the cellular information & confirm the cellular signals are both down when it reports no internet. I would assume both would be down but when I was seeing disruptions here back in late June 2021 it was a similar issue. I have not seen the download speeds vary as much unless there was a tower issue and the engineers were working on it. 

The reason I ask about the PCI values for both 4G & 5G is so you can confirm the GW is making a transition to another tower. With the PCI, physical cell identifiers, you can use those to locate the towers and then use Google Earth to determine the distance to the towers. If you are on the edge of two cells and the signal is making a transition, that is not working well, that might account for the behavior. I say might as work on the towers could well be taking place. The distance to the source of the signals is important. The 4G LTE can travel farther out. The n71 5G will travel and penetrate better than the n41 GHz signal. The n71 can radiate out maybe 10 miles but is really not as functional beyond 5 miles. It all depends upon the terrain and IF true line of sight is present between the source and node receiving the signal. The n41 signal can really only reach out about 3 miles but to get the rocking speeds you need to be closer in. A good clean n41 signal 1.5-2 miles provides great results. 

The cellular metrics for RSRP, RSRQ & SINR help to profile how the signal is received. That will change with environmental conditions. If you are between two towers and on the edge of both that could lead to the gateway making a transition from one to the other but that might be impacting the active sessions causing them to hang at times. If you get more data on the operation it is possible to work on improving behavior. Of course if the tower is being worked on then just have to find out from T-Mobile.