Forum Discussion
Home internet becoming unreliable after few months
We got T-Mobile home internet AND upgraded to Magenta Max at the same time on our phone plan because it was a total of $50 per month (either pay $50 per month for internet or upgrade to Magenta Max on phones for $20 and then pay $30 for internet). The internet worked great for the first 2 months. Then it started dropping signal once, twice, now multiple times a day. I work from home and can't be on a zoom call when signal drops. My work computer takes longer to find the signal once dropped than other devices due to vpn and firewalls but that's how companies keep data secure. I've called a T-Mobile and been on the phone for an hour doing all their tests. I was transferred to another tech who told me see how it works tomorrow now. He said he'd call me at 2pm to see if any drops that day. I recorded drops at 8am and again around 9:30. Then when he tried to call me, internet dropped again and the call went t9 voicemail instead after 1 ring. He left a message saying he assumes all good but call back if issues and here's 800 number. So no way to get him personally without going through the whole process again. I'm done and calling comcast to set up fiber optics. I live near Phoenix and was happy knowing T-Mobile home internet was available for my address since they were rolling it out to limited areas only. suspect they've now accepted more customers than their service can accommodate especially after reading all the negative messages about the service on this site.
Simple fix. Switch to a different carrier. T-Mobile is becoming unreliable.
Marcia_1986 wrote:
suspect they’ve now accepted more customers than their service can accommodate
Nailed it. Same here.
We just signed up for AT&T 1Gig Fiber for $80 a month. We're keeping the Magenta Max on the phones so we will still be able to short-term hotspot tether in case of outages with AT&T, as a backup. But the T-Mobile Home Internet is useless, especially in metro areas where it's oversold, causing extreme throttling (YES, I said throttling - even TMo's TOS state pretty clearly that TMobile reduces speeds on Home Internet accounts during periods of high demand in order to prioritize mobile phone signal usage). But it appears that bandwidth is simply spread too thin across too many users, resulting in "high demand" that's 24/7, making TMobile Home Internet unstable and useless around the clock.
If you rely on internet for work or business, T-Mobile's instability and Home Internet throttling practices could be catastrophic, as they nearly were for us. The ONLY thing that saved us from adverse action at work (until we can get AT&T's tech in to install fiber) was to pay an additional $35 to T-Mobile per month to upgrade to the 100GB of hotspot per phone account (see phone Addons in TMobile account) in order to use the cell phone hotspot instead of T-Mobile Home Internet. When Home Internet download speeds were about 1 or 2 Mbps with uploads in the 0.3 Mbps range, the hotspot at least usually had speeds in the mid-40's down and 20 up, which was (barely) sufficient for zoom meetings.
It's becoming clear. They get you to sign up then in a couple of months they cut the speed and the service. There ought to be a law.
NCC1701mess wrote:
It's becoming clear. They get you to sign up then in a couple of months they cut the speed and the service. There ought to be a law.
I think the answer is to cancel, send that cheap off-brand gateway back, and sign up with a better Internet service provider.
I so know that feeling! My T-Mobile internet sucks and I have been paying $50 a month for it plus I am on the Magenta+ . I'm 61 yrs old and they really haven't helped me out very much.
If you are not having to share your computer screen, perhaps try zoom calls on your phone. I am crossing my fingers with TMO Home Internet, I have been seeing sub 100mbps recently, if they do not grow capacity to compensate for additional users, I would have to switch back to cable.
blueberrycat wrote:
Marcia_1986 wrote:
suspect they’ve now accepted more customers than their service can accommodate
Nailed it. Same here.
We just signed up for AT&T 1Gig Fiber for $80 a month. We're keeping the Magenta Max on the phones so we will still be able to short-term hotspot tether in case of outages with AT&T, as a backup.
Just know you may have the same internet issues with ATT fiber as well. Our service falls out on a recurring basis using it. We lose more service with the fiber then we did with their analog service.
Today Is The Tomorrow That You Worried About Yesterday
The exact same thing has been happening to my 5G connection as mentioned by Marcia_1986. it worked ok for the first month with 300 down and 15+ up but not consistent though. En el second month, the signal has been dropping so often interrupting my Zoom conferences and other work. So my happiness with 5G internet lasted for one month and has been very disappointing after that. If T-Mobile doesn't get this corrected, I may have to check with other providers.
Unfortunately, pretty much the same story for me. I stress tested the heck out of t-mobile internet the first few weeks I had it. It was great. High speed across multiple devices running video, streaming, gaming, VPN, etc. it worked great. The last month or so has been rough. For the most part, it maintains a good connection, but inconsistently drops. Often times, I switch back and forth from WiFi to hotspot simply because of the inconsistent signal/reliability. Strongly considering switching back to a more reliable service since I also must work from home. So tired of the intermittent loading/spinning wheel on video (both on mobile and streaming TV) or flat out drops. Have rebooted modem multiple times daily, lately.
