What I did to get better connection without antenna, Bucket idea
I've had my T-Mobile Trash can for over a year already and did a lot of experimenting with it as far as location and how to get he best reception for the least money. I noticed while I'm 3-4 miles from any tower , I would get very little reception at least anything good while in the house. And I was correct while in the house it was terrible slower than slow lucky to get 1.5 down with 2 bars showing for my primary signal and nothing for my secondary. So, before I jump out and spend a small fortune on an antenna and cables , I took the cheap approach to see if it would even work in my area . I placed the trashcan inside a 5-gallon bucket with a lid on it upside down with one smaller entry hole cut into the bottom for electric and any drainage from dew buildup. While in the bucket I rotated the trashcan to get the best reception and marked it there, I also set the trashcan in the bucket but not on the lid but instead raised it on top a small empty coffee can so if any water or condensation were inside it would quickly drain out before ever coming near the height of the unit. Strapped it down from the winds and snow and now I get a primary signal of -104 dbm which is not that great and secondary signal of -92 dbm whereas now I get a constant download speed of 80-150 Mbps and uploads of 12-19 Mbps.. Been out there for almost a year and doing its job without dumping 4-5 hundred on an antenna that who knows if it will work on the next model that comes out.
Downtown Billings, MT - DO NOT SWITCH TO TMO - THEY NEGLECT OUR TOWERS
hello, i thought id drop by here to let everyone in my area who might be thinking about switching to them know that the service is godawful, and it appears they have zero plans for midband 5G here. it's especially pathetic that the midband is in most small townsBUT not the largest city in MT. The tower downtown (the big one on n. 22nd street) is insanely overloaded and oversubscribed. it was erected a few years back after people started jumping ship again from the bad signal from lack oftowers. now they've neglected the overloadedtower and it malfunctions practically every weekday from 9a-9p. AT&T has actually rolled out 5G service correctly, and so has Verizon. T-MO is once again left as the worst and slowest carrier in Billings. (don't believe me, check rootmetrics!) i would love to switch but i'm currently stuck with them and have major buyers remorse. also, youd be lucky if a call goes out or comes in when roaming. so listen fellow Billingsites - don't do it. you've been warned.Signal strength VAPORIZED. More downtime with T-Mobile Home Internet than I've ever had with any other ISP.
I got sick of the constant downtime that I experienced with Cox every time a tropical storm came through Louisiana, so I decided to give T-Mobile a try. There's no phone lines to fall down so the internet is always up, right? And since I already have 4 phone lines and 3 cellular devices with T-Mobile, it seemed like the right course of action and the price was attractive, although I would GLADLY PAY MORE for faster data (I can keep dreaming, right?) WRONG. T-Mobile home internet goes down like 5 times a day. I used to call it in but it happens now so frequently that it's a waste of time. They would tell me they're doing upgrades and to wait it out, toggle the power switch on/off and it usually came back on in 3-4 minutes. I stuck with T-Mobile thinking those "upgrades" would pay off, but they haven't and it's actually taken a turn for the worse. The outages are now lasting between 5-10 minutes and on top of that, I have an entirely new problem that didn't exist before: LOW SIGNAL STRENGTH. For 7 months, my gateway has been sitting in the same exact place. It's positioned right in front of the window, on top of 4 milk crates because it's the only place in the house where I can get 4 bars, but that's all come to an end because all of the sudden, out of nowhere, I only gets 2 bars now. This happened about 4 days ago and I haven't moved any furniture or anything, it just dropped from 4 bars to 2 and there's no other place in the house where I can get a decent signal. The only way I can get 3 bars, is IF I TAKE IT OUTSIDE. What's strange is that the symptoms are not consistent. Sometimes the cellular will go out on all my devices (which makes sense if T-Mobile is working on the tower) but other times, it's just the home internet that goes down. It's about 50/50. Do gateways just go bad? Is there any kind of extender?
