T-mobile 5g home internet forcing to tower with no data issues/changing towers/bands

I don't know if this is relevant, but it may help someone else who has made the same mistake and is having issues with 5g connections. Recently I called customer support to troubleshoot my crappy connection which kept intermittently dropping needing reset of silver Nokia unit and they chose to send me a "replacement". When I set up the new one, I relocated it about 4' from the old spot (just on  the other side of the window where it had sat iin the past with the same issues) and again, it had the same connection problems. Using the nearest outlet, the huge plug was very visible so I used a flat-type connector 3' extension cord and dropped the cords behind the table. The old unit was also connected to this same extension cord.

So my signal didn't change. After rebooting, it would connect to both bands for a few seconds then go strictly to the B41 band (i think that's the one). Frustrating... I don't know what triggered the memory, but I recalled reading somewhere that connecting things to extension cords could cause issues like overheating, so I removed the cord, plugged the unit directly into the wall and I've had solid continuous dual band connection with 125-150mbps for the last 2 days (25mbps max prior). So for some reason beyond my limited understanding of these things, the cord was interfering with the 5g signal and probably messing with the other band as well. I suppose it could be cooincidence and it was the new unit that helped stabilize the signals, but I think it was the extension cord.

Hope this makes sense and is useful to anyone having issues that may also be using an extension cord.

ItsMeSB

I'm posting this for people who are recently looking at this thread.

The old silver Nokia "gateway" cylinder is junk - most are the chips used were NOT really to spec and succumb to heat sooner or later. (I went thru 4 of these in 2 years, before T-Mo switched to the black Arcadyan gateways. (These have their own unique problem of frequently losing their 5G connection!)

Long-story-short, I have been with T-Mo Home Internet for over 3 years - I had 1 year of good service. I may be switching to a new provider in 5 days, due to continued awful, inconsistent data speeds (10-50 Mbps) with T-Mo. I'm on my 3rd black Arcadyan gateway - they all eventually lose the 5G connection, and I'm only 300ft. from one 5G tower and less than 1/4 mile away from another! What an irritating, frustrating shame!! 

I have the same issues - worked fine for a few months this year, but the last 2 months have been horrible (new Nokia 5G gateway) also my phones when in 5G will lose connectivity as well (its not the box).  Everyone should file an FCC Complaint.  Here is the URL:  https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/

okay so since moving my gateway to the highest spot i could place it in my home and setting a floor fan blowing right at it. I havnt had it drop in over 2 hours now. The silver 5g gateway seems super finicky to where you face it. You can cut your connection in half just by turning the gateway 10 degrees an either direction...i never had this problem with that old white rectangular gateway

My silver trashcan has strarted doing this within the last 4 days. Before that it was fine..speeds werent great at all but at least it was consistent. My gateway is losing connection with the b12 tower every 20 minutes..sometiems connects to b71 but it soon drops from that. Tmobile support says there is nothing wrong with my connection tho? This is such a joke im tempted to cancel and send them back their "300 dollar" gateway in pieces. I put a large fan by it to keep it cool ill update my post if i stop experiencing problems because it does get rathe hot..not so hot that i couldnt hold my hand on it obviously but it feels like the air coming from my pcs cpu

It’s depressing to see someone make a post a year ago, for the exact same problem I currently have

djb14336 wrote:

Cell phones get top priority once utilization reaches a certain threshold.  Don't know what that level is exactly, but home internet packets will get heavily queued when it happens (you can see the jitter factors go through the roof when it kicks in).  If it holds them long enough you risk timeouts depending on the application's tolerance for delayed packets.

 

Thus, the <usual> culprit is the congestion level.  Not necessarily for the wireless, but it can also be on the back haul as well.  A single tower can host multiple bands at the same location, all feeding into the same upstream pipeline.  Which can lead to a massive chokepoint under high utilization.

 

As a result, lately TMO seems to be wrangling with a capacity issue more so than coverage.

Definitely both. They manage to not only get dead spots in rural/semi-rural ears and major highways, but even in the middle of the city they have random spots with bars but no service. Usually those areas your phone is observably switching between LTE/5G and different frequencies, often without being able to do more than slowly load a webpage. Even urban areas near Bellevue headquarters have issues.

5G signal has been in & out off & on 50-60 times a day over in Pace FL. Both the phone & tower for wifi go out. I was rebooting every 5-10 minutes on the phone, but gave up on the wifi. Customer support was sympathetic, but mostly useless 😕 The one good piece of advise, actually very helpful was to just go in & out of airplane mode. It was vastly quicker to reconnect to T-Mobile this way.

Tech support said they were not showing any problems with the tower my phone was connected through. My response, Yeah, right now it's fine, that's how I'm able to talk to you tech superstar Clair! You need to check the tower history not a snapshot. Sprint customers got shafted! T-mobile's sim card was not compatible with my Sprint purchased Galaxy 8 +, forcing me to by another phone that was built for T-Mobile service. I just couldn't get myself to spend over another $1100 for the Samsung I wanted. Paid about $285 cash on the Motorola Ace 5G. No contract no commitment.

 T-Mobile undeniably has the best service price, but customer service is really just lip service now! I am giving them another week to fix this or I'm just going to have to pay someone else for these services that can work. 

Facts: Speed test for T-Mobile on phone & wifi from April through July 180-410mbs download, 12-110mbs upload. These speeds are still consistent when I'm able to connect to service. 

Sorry, I was kinda rambling while waiting for Tower to give me signal again 🥺😉😂🤣

I wonder if anyone from T-Mobile actually reads these...they would instantly know that they have a problem that needs to be fixed asap otherwise they are basically cheating their customers.  They should not even be charging customers until the service is satisfactory in line with their promises as well as customer expectations.

So i ended up moving and canceling about 5 days before my next bill date ---WATCH OUT T-MOBILE IS STILL TRYING TO CHARGE ME FOR THIS SERVICE AND I HAVE NO WAY TO LOG IN WITHOUT LINKING A T-MOBILE NUMBER MY ACCOUNT IS INACCESABLE TO CHECK MY BILL OR ANYTHING YET I CAN STILL LOG IN TO MAKE THIS COMMENT

This has by far been the worst service i have ever had in my life and T-MOBILE in general is horrible to do business with ---to cancel and return my device i went to the t-mobile store thinking i could do it all at once NOPE i pretty much got yelled at to leave the store that they only sell plans there ---another store employee at least noticed how rude the lady was and talked to me and gave me a phone number to call ---this is insane if you ask me ---keep in mind i got this plan and device through the chat….that offers 0 support and i cant log in and even on the phone they want a phone number that does not exist anymore i wonder how much money t-mobile is stealing from people who have not noticed there being charged after canceling----this company really should not be aloud to do business at all