Forum Discussion
t-mobile Home Internet - Location Issue
I live in Los Angeles County California, and the home internet is showing the different sites that I am in Las Vegas. This creates a problem from things like streaming YouTube TV, to access my local channels. Spent many hours with Home Internet (they act like they have never heard of the problem - yet I have seen some comment on this chat (doesn't T-Mo monitor the chat room, (another question for another day))). It was suggested that I wire my personal router into the T-Mo router, and at first it appeared to work but then when I went to You Tube it showed location as Vegas again, An hour on chat with You-tube (this person appeared to know what they were talking about) and he finally said that You tube uses your IP address to determian where you have access and since my was saying Vegas that all they can do. Anyone have any suggestions on a work around, I would hate to go back to Spectrum to solfe the issue.
The person that marked this as solved it an idiot. The issue is with the lease time of 12 hours. Your public IP can change every 12 hours. The server that hands out or assigns the IP (DHCP server) to the gateway can assign an IP that is owned by T-MOBILE from the ENTIRE network and not just the network segments that a reflective of your geographic location. This is means the towers are not segmented into geographic segments, but just in network segments that can pull an IP for anywhere in the country. I live in Kansas but my home internet is choosing a Denver, Co or a GA location for me. Who is the person that designed this?
T-Mobile's solution to me was to set a static IP, but I would have to convert to a business account. I have no idea if this is going to cost more money monthly, but it better not, as I will just cancel and go back to the cable company that provides this for free as part of the standard setup.With websites on the computer, I discovered that with Firefox, just clicking in the allow location pop-up box works. For some reason, Chrome and the Edge usually don't. I still will be told my location is something it's not and I'm not in my state.
janetsch wrote:
Thank you for your reply. I have a chrome laptop and nothing can prevent this. I don't think we should be charged as much for our service if we have to bother with changing our address when browsing, for example, google shopping and my banking institution and more. The thing is I wasn't forewarned of this. Why is Tmobile not fixing this???
Primarily because it’s not a T-Mobile issue as noted here:
T-Mobile cannot reasonably be expected to correct flaws in operating systems, apps or browsers.
T-Mobile does provide some compatibility requirements for T-Mobile’s Home Internet Service and in particular for live streaming but they fail to mention that equally applies to other content providers who rely on IP address geolocation:
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/home-internet/connect
I agree that T-Mobile should make this clearer and also clarify it in their Open Internet Policies which the FCC requires published. See Open Internet link at the bottom of this page. When you signed up with T-Mobile they probably mentioned those policies in passing (most folks don't read them anyway and are unaware of certain disclaimers).
This is how cellular internet works just like a cell phone. The local towers connect to a backend that could be a long distance from your physical location. As for YoutubeTV, you just update your location using your YoutubeTV mobile app and it will use the GPS of your smartphone to identify location. I assume you are trying to set the location on a streaming device so just follow the onscreen instructions that tell you to open the mobile app. I have both TMO Home internet and YoutubeTV and using the YoutubeTV mobile app to pinpoint location works fine.
Not defending TMO since they should be able to better explain this phenomenon by themselves... but this really is the fault of content providers that rely on IP-based geolocation databases. In a wired world they are accurate but with mobile and satellite technologies your location can be very far away from your network's point of presence, as noted by Cali Cat above. There's nothing in an IP address that identifies your location accurately - the only location that is 100% certain from your IP address is your country (unless using a VPN).
Content providers that rely on GPS based location are generally accurate but even then there are ways to fake them out or spoof (giving you more flexibility) but not all devices have GPS capability and methods as described buy Cali Cat for YTTV may be available from your content provider.
I have this location issue with MLB.TV
I reside in San Diego but TM home Internet displays my location as Los Angeles. As a result I can't watch the Dodgers or Angels games My mlb blackout team is the Padres, which I can view.
You appear to be very mellow with the IP location issue. I'm into my third month of T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. My real world location is Lebanon, Missouri (Missouri Ozarks Salem Plateau). My IP location switches from Chicago, IL, Denver, CO and sometimes Independence, MO. It appears my IP address changes/renews every 12 hours. This wrecks havoc on streaming services and secure login sites, like my bank, Walmart, Lowe's, etcetera. Trusted device keeps changing with the IP address. Didn't bother me untill I attempted to access our Secretary of State's website in regards to the midterm elections. I was denied access for being out of state. Yeppers, not a happy camper anymore!
We have been having the same problem with the geo-location for the Nokia gateway being incorrect for about 6-8 weeks now. When we added internet back in July 2022, it was working well without any problems. Now, we keep getting an IP address from Altanta, GA (eastern time zone), but we live in Nashville, TN (central time zone). We first noticed this when our clocks and weather settings kept messing up on all our devices. When watching TV through the Roku, we started getting Georgia election commercials and Atlanta news/weather feeds instead of for Nashville. Very frustrating.
Now, this is affecting the clocks on all our connected devices such as computers, tablets and Echo Show devices that we use as our alarm clocks. I keep having to reset my clocks and alarms to the Central Time zone which will only work for a while. Extremely frustrating. Is there anything that T-mobile can do to fix this? If not, we might have to go back to paying more for AT&T fiber.
ThomasJ wrote:
I have an update on this…... I finally called T-Mobile support about the wrong location content on our Roku TV. The rep looked at my account and said she noticed some incorrect location information and she suggested re-checking things in a couple of days. I was a bit skeptical but now we are correctly gettting Phoenix content on the Roku TV at last (instead of Los Angeles). I can't say for sure exactly what she found that was incorrect but I would suggest taking the time to give them a call… it just may help!
Great - NOT! A "one of" fix is not needed!! This is SYSTEM-wide. Why isn't T-Mobile communicating about this??
I just got T-mobile internet and suddenly the ads on streaming services are for Atlanta businesses (I live in North Carolina).
Also when I go to sites like Lowes.com and Walmart.com it thinks I am in Atlanta, but Target.com thinks I am in Chattanooga, TN. Other sites see that I am in NC.
I hear that Netflix may soon be rolling out a feature that blocks people from sharing passwords by making them login at their home location. I worry that since my internet thinks I am in Atlanta, this will cause problems in the future. I also worry about what other issues may come up. I am still in my 15-day trial period.
