Forum Discussion
finding best location for T-Mobile home Internet gateway
I'm confused about moving the unit around the house to find the best location. To do this must the unit be plugged in, or can it be done using battery power only? It seems crazy to have to walk around and keep plugging in and then unplugging between locations. You should be able to just walk around on battery power only... and watch the signal meter on the top to find the best spot. Please advise as I just got mine and it's unclear how best to do this.
Well, there are external antennas but connecting one and obtaining results needs a bit of research first. I would first ask if you have the Nokia round router or the Arcadyan router with the rounded off corners and squarish vertical router with the LED on the front vs the Nokia that has the small LED screen on the top of the router.
The Nokia is pretty easy to add external antenna solutions to. Waveform.com has 2X2 MIMO antennas and a various host of antenna solutions. They have good info on the installation of the antenna as well at least for the Nokia router. On reddit they even posted information about their 4x4 MIMO antenna but if you are on n71 and not on a n41 channels 2X2 MIMO or another similar antenna is sufficient. The 4X4 MIMO is expensive. Start with $400 for the 4X4 antenna then add 4 lightning arrestors $200 and maybe some custom cables for length well you can see not cheap.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobileisp/comments/sn2wyf/product_launch_waveform_4x4_panel_antenna/
Guess mine is the Arcadian unit.
iTinkeralot wrote:
When I spoke with the Waveform engineer he was very helpful and courteous. They currently have a guide for the Arcadyan router like they did for the Nokia.
He pointed me to the guide for the Arcadyan in no time. It seems very clear. Not as simple as the Nokia for opening but not bad. Pretty easy to crack it open and have it spill the beans.
Yes, as I stated above, I found the waveform antenna kits and their installation guide, and watched a few of the nater tater videos. Looks like a viable alternative, just very apprehensive about taking apart the gateway and possibly boogering something up.
And, obviously my gateway is providing me with internet service, a I'm using it now. Although, late last night my internet speeds totally tanked, was down in the single digits for download speed.
Also, I thought these gateways had battery backups that would allow you to unplug it and move it around to find the best placement for signal strength? Unplugged mine and it powers off and won't power back on until I plug it back in. Then I have to wait for it to boot back up, makes moving it around to check the signal strength a PITA.
Ltngdrvr wrote:
Also, I thought these gateways had battery backups that would allow you to unplug it and move it around to find the best placement for signal strength? Unplugged mine and it powers off and won't power back on until I plug it back in. Then I have to wait for it to boot back up, makes moving it around to check the signal strength a PITA.
Apparently, the Arcadyan does not have a battery like the Nokia does.
Options include using a very long extension cord, or a portable battery inverter, like the Ryobi.
Yes I saw you had found the Waveform information on the antennas. I posted the reference to the manual for the Arcadyan router as others might find it useful and convenient if they review the conversation. I understand about considering taking it apart and the consequences if something was messed up by an unexpected event.
With the unpredictable behavior of the signal I would really be suspicious that the T-Mobile engineers continue to work on the equipment feeding the traffic.
So far, this T-Mobile deal is a little aggravating as far as speed. Right now the speed has tanked again, just checked and it is about 4 Mbps, earlier today it was running above 80 Mbps, and I have not changed anything.
So, after spending 45 minutes on the phone with T-Mobile, the support rep is telling me they are in the midst of doing enhancements to the local towers, and this is the most likely reason my speeds are going down in the evenings. They reset everything, reported the slow down to their support system, opened a ticket or whatever they call it. And, they are sure the problem will be resolved. Heck of a deal for a brand new customer to deal with right off the bat. We'll see...
I joined in the BETA phase so I expected the possibility of disruptions but I had no other reasonable option here. My options were Hughes Net, sucky or StarLink and a whole bunch of money up front and 2x the cost. We did have a few periods where disruptions took place and the reality I discovered was that most of the time it was tower related equipment. The down side is it is difficult to determine right off if the signal is lost or not as the clients stay connected to the WIFI and one cellular signal might be present but it fails to work. The LTE signal here is pretty lame and only the n71 channel seems to do the heavy lifting.
After T-Mobile dials in the tower and gets it where it should be it will improve. It is ver frustrating when it is bouncing or just goes bananas. Maybe Donkey Kong climbs T-Mobile towers for fun and exercise. 😎
Well, last night I was trying to improve my reception, when I noticed that the tower CGI had changed since the T-Mobile rep had reset everything, and the current tower location was on the opposite side of my house from the original one, so I disconnected the gateway and moved it to a window on the other side of the house. That helped, had 3 bars showing instead of 2, but the internet speed only slightly improved, was still only about 5 Mbps. This morning when I got up and checked it on a few different servers, I got as high as 117 Mbps, but also as low as 24 Mbps. The problem with where the gateway is now is that it is so far away from my TV that the ethernet cable doesn't come close to reaching, and the wifi refuses to stay connected to it. Nothing's ever easy.
