Slow upload speed and T Mobile home Internet

SocalCenla wrote:

We have to do a reboot via the web interface about every day to keep the upload speed up where it should be, download always seems to be fine.  We have a weak signal but we get avg 50mbps down and 13mbps up. 

By rebooting, you are probably connecting to the band combination which gives you the most desirable upload speed.

Gateway placement can sometimes influence the frequency of connecting to your most favorable band combination, and for you the acceptable upload speed.

You use the web interface to reboot, so look under Status on the left and see what bands you are connected to using the dropdown arrows beside Primary Signal and Secondary Signal. If you have two signals you are on 5G, and that's usually faster than being on a 4G-only primary signal.

I'm very happy with my speeds now, 5 miles from a tower, of an average of 90 on the download and 10 on the upload, and never dropping below 45 or so. But it took a few days of experimentation to get there.

What surprised me is that even in the various locations I've tried around my house where I get 2 bars on the gateway, the speed ranges can vary drastically. Likewise, I can get 3 bars in one window closest to the tower, and 3 bars on the roof, but the roof speeds are terrible comparatively. And the three bars in the window makes me sometimes get switched to a dreaded crawl speed of 4 to 25 4G only signal, even though that was only 5% of the time.

In the OVERVIEW tab on the left on the web interface, it shows separate signal strengths for Primary and Secondary. You may find your ideal combination will show two different strengths. You can control that by rotating the gateway sometimes, or a different placement.

If you are showing a primary signal only, then you are on 4G only. If you are showing an n41 signal in the Secondary (5G), that is about the best you will be doing speed-wise, once you find your optimal gateway placement. If you find an n71 signal in the Secondary (5G), there is a chance T mobile will replace it with n41 in the coming months and your speed could jump up quite a lot.

n71 is T mobile's long-range low-frequency wave that doesn't have high speeds, especially as you get farther from the tower. The n41 band is mid-frequency higher speeds. 

If you want to read more in detail about this garbage, I mean stuff, click on my badge to the left of this message, the blue circle with the T, to read my other posts about this.

Your speeds are great if you are 10 miles from a tower, or you are 5 miles with a lot of obstructions. Otherwise they're kind of low for 5G. But it's all relative according to what you're coming from and what you can expect realistically, according to where you live in relation to the T mobile tower(s).