BUY IT: Get 5% off Waveform antenna and signal booster products with this link: www.waveform.com/natertater or just use code "NATERTATER" at checkout. Then you can go to the 4x4 MIMO Antenna product page: www.waveform.com/products/4x4-mimo-panel-kit Cheetah 5G Router (use COUPON CODE NaterTater for $45 off): chestertechrepairs.com/products/wifi6-industrial-lte-5g-nr-wireless-modem-router-unlimited-hotspot-rv Invisagig - chestertechrepairs.com/products/invisagig-os-qualcomm-sdx62-rm520n-gl-standalone-modem-nr5g-4g-lte USE COUPON CODE for $20 OFF : natertater20off Be sure to see my other Verizon and T-Mobile Home Internet Videos: Verizon: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNSOcTz7L6sHiuWVQXwUT4my T-mobile: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNQHp0KWk8gG8XXvaKzaoSB3 Peplink cellular devices: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNTZR2vUJWyd6kmmDD6ediym
While trying to find the best place for my T-Mobile gateway I just happened to set it on the fold out shelf of a 6ft aluminum step ladder that I had out in the garage. The signal instantly went to 3 bars and I finally got the secondary ( 5G ) connection. I've had it out on the ladder for 3 days now and the performance has been terrific. So if you're having trouble you might give this a try.
@@thatunknownguy2680 same, I primarily use it for gaming but this is by far giving me the worst gaming experience I've ever had with the constant lag/low ping, and disconnects
20 gig in like 12 minutes so this is actually decent speed ,and I mean I have gigablast down which gives me about nine hundred Megs down and 35 up but for the price I'm paying it's not worth it if I have 4 bars in this thing I get at least 600 makes down and 70 up
@@MegaManman12345 Did you ever get the ping solved? I also like gaming sometimes and while my d/l speeds are great my ping is 100ms+ and I have about 8% packet loss which really hurts realtime gaming
@@KevinWatt13 unfortunately no. It still gives my xbox packet loss, ping issues and lags on heavy multiplayer games, like warzone and nba 2k. Everything else and it works great. So I haven't figured out how to resolve that problem. Sorry.
Thank you so much for your videos on T-Mobile Home Internet! I've had it for a week, not thrilled with it overall until I found your videos. Your videos helped me tremendously and now I'm loving the service - great speeds, much better signal. THANKS!!!
Thanks for the info. Just got my gateway today and kept having connection issues. Kept having the no internet uplug for 10 seconds prompt. It would be nice and fast then loose signal. All I was looking at was the bars and it said good. The metrics are in a different location now. I got my SIRN up to about 18.2-20 now and haven't lost signal yet. I'm getting roughly 80Mbps down and 20up pretty steady. Good enough for me.
Thank you so much! I wondered if the direction of the Gateway made a difference and was able to get my RSRP to -93 from -111 and the SNR to 11 from 19 which has made a massive increase in my download capacity!
After watching several videos about TMobil 5G I am left with the impression that one has to work at getting the best signal, that better internet signal/service is not a given if you switch to TMobil 5G. I am with Comcast where I don't have that hassle. I am not a power user but do expect good streaming video. So your information is very valuable and appreciated, thank you.
Incomparable the difference this made. I went from teeter totttering between 4G to 5G and getting only 30Mbps to 20SNI 0 and 1 RSRQ and 200+ MBPs. MUCH better and more stable. I had it on the second floor center of the house near an outside window where I THOUGHT my antenna was found out it was in the opposite direction out it on the north side of the house and Incomparable
One thing to note - even if your phone uses T-Mobile or one of its MVNOs (e.g. Mint Mobile, Boost), the tower that your phone connects to and the tower that your Gateway connects to may still be different. And even if they both connect to the same tower, they may connect to that tower differently - resulting in different BANDW readings for the gateway (5M , 10M, 20M). Nate, thanks for maintaining this RUclips channel!
@@Bryan-Hensley I do believe that bandw is bandwidth. How that relates to wavelength (e.g. meters) in the context of cellular networks is unknown to me.
When I signed up for TMO Home, the first 6 months was a struggle low speeds most of time 10-20Mbps in peak hours 60-120Mbps night time but after they tweaked the towers around everything improved drastically 200- 300 Mbps all the time, I've seen all the way to 600 Mbps with 2 bars.. has anyone experienced the same, by the way doesn't matter which way I set it in my garage, it works.
But why should you need help from strangers? I'm not going to do tmobile's job for them, AND pay them $50 per month! Do the math, all they're doing is stringing along millions of customers to keep their shareholders happy
@@RaysMuleBarn the power of social media (including RUclips) is we can collaborate, share and help each other out. Nobody, company or device is perfect but atleast we can share our experiences and knowledge to improve together.
Have you done any tests, etc for signal loss with Low E Glass? T-Mobile says to put in front of a window but I'm seeing there may be issues with doing that if you have energy efficient windows with Low E coating
Thank you so much for doing this video I learned a lot and took a couple of screen captures and also took some notes down. This video was an excellent on education on cell technology.
Definitely consider contributing to the CellMapper data when driving around town! You can pinpoint the towers within a few weeks of using it for a few hours a day if you drive often :D
I should add that cell napper can be insanely accurate or insanely inaccurate. It all depends on the amount of data points i can use (user generated). A lot of times people in cell mapper is people just driving by a tower and disconnecting, and so for example, on freeways it looks like the tower is exactly on the freeway but it may really be on the other side of the freeway a half a mile away. At first this kind of put me off I thought cellmapper was just very inaccurate but when I started to use it a lot to collect data it's amazingly underrated! Make sure to set your minimum recording interval to 1 second so that you can get your mapping completed much faster, by default I think it only takes a data point every 15 seconds which is a really long time while going 20+mph
@@yfs9035 i assumed cell mapper can only see your phone's carrier's towers and not even other CDMA signals that my phone could technically see I think (Verizon). So my data will help Verizon mapping but not t-mobile.
T-Mobile home internet for me I get speeds between 425-660 down and 65-75 up. I’m lucky I live on higher ground I guess. It’s also been stable so far (been a week).
This video helps out a lot. What I'm noticing is that currently, there's always this "trade off" between better SINR numbers and worse RSRP numbers. So if the RSRP numbers gets to an ideal range, the SINR gets a lot worse. Right now, a lot of people don't have power due to the bad storms that rolled through here this past Monday, so some signal towers might be offline. But that's what I'm noticing in the numbers now, and I wonder if that's normal?
@@NaterTater I wonder...if it does that because it temporarily connected to a 4g LTE signal while looking for another 5g one? When it does that, most times the 5g band value goes away, and what appears is a " - ". Or am I getting too nerdy? LOL Anyway, I finally found the sweet spot in my room. I stay in an attic room (2 story bungalow), and have my laptop on a dresser near a window and the roof. My laptop is next to the window, while the lowest point of the slope of the roof is about 8 feet from the window, and that's where I just put the gateway, on top of old magazines in a mini magazine rack. Ironic how I had to set the gateway farther away from the window to get a better signal... RSRQ: -11 RSRP: -86 SINR: 25.2 the value for SINR would normally be in the lower teens to upper single digits, and RSRP would be in the triple digits near the window.
@@TivonSanders the - means it lost 5G and/or was switching towers/bands on 5G. A -86 RSRP is a stronger signal than a -105 dB RSRP. Sounds like you found a good place. Your laptop placement should affect anything so long as you have reasonable wifi signal.
I have the older 4G LTE device. My SINR is -3.5. I'm having a very hard time getting any service lately. It was good whenever I got it, but lately it's been absolutely terrible. Some days it doesn't even connect to the internet. T-Mobile tells me, "The tower is down" so much that I'm about to get rid of their junky service all together.
Hey Nate, your videos are great, thank you so much. I love the T-Mobile internet and you’ve helped me navigate it so that it works better. I am still not very successful at streaming my Hulu live tv and it’s tiring to call Hulu all the time because the fix is always temporary (sometimes 5minutes, sometimes a day) My question is, is this my T-Mobile or is this Hulu? My gateways is at 4 bars always no matter where in my home I put it. Thanks to anyone out there with help and advice!
Hi Holly, its t-mobile. Typically it settles after a while and hulu ends up adding all "your" public facing IP addresses. Sounds like that isnt happening for you though. There are options like using a VPN to help provide a consistent "location" but take some setup.
Thanks for your videos they helped so much! Receive a Tmobile gateway and its running great. Really fast so much faster than xfinity really impressed. Was not expecting this kind of speeds.
I heard they had nokia disable the battery backup so folks wouldn't take the router to other locations. The old white routers you could do this. Also the white router battery backup is a huge plus when the electric goes out you can still get internet for four hrs I think it is.
Thanks ! Just got my unit yesterday, everything is working good, but there isnt much info available. Their app is seriously lacking useful information. The only issue I have had was my wifi bulbs needs 2.4 Ghz wifi and the unit defaults to 5 Ghz. Figured it out, then wanted to get the best signal for it.
Hello, I just ran across your videos when looking up the Arcadyan device I've convinced them to send me. I just had a question: When looking at the cell tower metrics, what does it mean when some things are showing up as blank? ( It just shows a hyphen)
Thanks Nate. This was a very good video. I understand more about the RSRQ and SNR now. I was always a little unsure about that. Also one other thing, I from the 1st day I watched you videos I was thinking that you sure look someone I know. But today I finally figured it out. You remind me of Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump. LOL Really.. Is there anyone else who see this?
I just got my 5G Home Internet, and your videos are really helpful in identifying some of the issues with consistency I've been having, thanks a lot! I did have a question, is it normal for the signal to jump to different cell towers? I'm wondering if going from different towers is the main reason my internet speeds are so wildly inconsistent.
Its not preferred but it does happen to some. Not common but also not unheard of. You do want to try to prevent it. Do this by moving the gateway elsewhere or blocking the unwanted signal with aluminum foil (between gateway and unwanted tower).
We purchased the Tmobile home internet so my daughter may work remotely. We've been successful hooking all home devices EXCEPT her work computer. We are told there is a VPN or Port Forwarding issue. Any suggestions or a quick list of steps to follow to get her up and running? Thank you!!!
Hi Sharon, if she has a work VPN then she likely needs to change the MTU size. That can be done on her laptop settings. Default is 1500, likely needs to go to 1320-1430 range to work on cellular based internet. You'll have to google how to do it for her specific VPN or computer operating system (ie windows 10). Here's some other videos where i've touch on it T-Mobile Home Internet 5G 4G LTE Wireless: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNQHp0KWk8gG8XXvaKzaoSB3
Hi Nate. I love all your content dealing with the T-Mobile internet. I have a quick question. Would placing the Nokia TMobile modem on tv table behind tv affect the signal? Thank you
Yes and no. In general you may see big differences in signal depending where you place it. For some behind the tv may be worse, others it will be better. Place it where YOU get the best signal/speed.
@@NaterTater thank you Nate. Also I have the fan that connects on top of the Nokia modem. Does it matter if connect the fan directly to the modem or connect it to a wall outlet. I have it to a wall outlet right now. Thanks again.
man thank you so much that was very very helpful and I tested it out and everything worked fine that was so awesome I'm getting way faster speeds now thank you so very much and faster upload
Very much appreciated the in-depth tech review. It convinced me to try T-Mo 5G Home and I'm pleased with the results. Since my office is an old military electronics shop, it is pretty much a Faraday cage, preventing me from receiving signals internally. I ended up mounting my unit on the roof in an inverted 5-gallon bucket w/lid and some ventilation holes. Although I only get 2 bars signal, d/l is pretty consistently 120Mbps. It has survived a few significant thunderstorms without incident; summer heat might be another issue. Might consider mounting on a pole later to improve reception.
You're welcome brent. You sound like a good candidate for an external antenna so you can keep the gateway inside but have an antenna outside for signal. See my other videos.
@@NaterTater I had also seen that video (and thank you for it, as well.) Based on your mixed results, I didn't feel adding an external antenna was worth the effort. It is notable that many modern systems seek to minimize antenna lead length (e.g., Starlink, Insty) in order to reduce db loss. (The mobile modem is placed in the same housing as the antenna and USB or ethernet cable runs out.) Since the T-Mobile system already has a pretty good antenna array. Just weatherproofing the whole thing seemed a better approach without tearing it open or investing in antennas tuned for the specific frequencies T-Mobile uses. If I want to improve the signal, I would first try mounting the unit on a raised pole before adding external antennas.
@@LayDeeTee1 my first iteration was to put it in an inverted 5 gallon plastic bucket (from Lowe's or HD). I used a soldering iron to punch ventilation holes low and high in the bucket, plus to run cables and power in. Hot glued in a little steel wool as a barrier to keep bugs out. This was set on the flat roof of my my workshop trailer. Lived there happily for almost a year, through hot sun and big rains.
@@LayDeeTee1 After a big storm finally knocked down my bucket setup, I put the device up on a pole. It is in a 6" PVC tube with an inverted plastic flower pot on top. The bottom is a round cut 1" plywood insert with a whole in the middle mating to the pole and to accommodate cables. The pole is an extendable aluminum one for cleaning pools. Cables run down the inside of the pole and into my shop. Total elevation is about 20' above ground. Getting much better reception than with the bucket (~200Mbps down). Also more reliable (maybe 1 reboot per week). If I were to do it over, I would use a sturdier pole, but it is holding up OK.
As of now, T-Mobile's Tech support says there's no problem using my Printer-USBc cable in my Nokia gateway, to enable Wireless printing with my "Bare-Bones" Canon printer thru my phone. I tried to get them to answer this question 4 months ago, but they didn't understand my question.
Sorry if this has been covered...but other than moving the gateway box around in my house to get a better signal, is there a way for me to manually select a different tower to connect to? thx!
both are important. good RSRP can be worthless with lots of noise/interference. RSRQ is sorta a combined metric if you want to try to optimize just one value.
Nate. I’m south of you just north of Toledo. I tried the gateway for 3 weeks and sent it back because in the evening there was so much traffic my speeds would fall below 5mps. They finally told me in my area that cell phones had access to the 5G network but the gateway did not. I’m going to try it again once they confirm that 5G is active for the gateway in my area.
Great vid, but I’m having trouble finding the cell/cell tower. My CGI number doesn’t show up in any of the towers within a 10 mile radius of me, and there are dozens. Is there any way I can type it in, or is there another way to search for the tower my gateway is connected to? My speeds are terrible, maxing out at 25mbps and has been as slow as 0.9!! Thanks!
@@NaterTater I found the cell. Where I live there are a stack of towers on top of each other. You have to click around for the right one to come to the top. Thanks!
You do not have to do all this. Under "Home" on the tmobile internet app is a link called "More about connection quality" and there you can launch the placement assistant which can locate the nearest tower
I found that closest tower does not always provide the best signal and data rate. The number of bars is also not the best indicator of data rate. I found that optimizing Quality and Signal to Noise (getting most positive readings) produces the best performance. I now get 50-75 Mbps consistently and occasionally 150Mbps.
Can u help me I just got 5g home internet and it's slow buffering but I have good signal 4 out of 5 bars but it buffers allot I tried calling the it of internet TMobile they can't help me if u can that would be great I have a 1 yr old and cartoons are his only way to not be hyper
Hey man Thanks for the tips, I have been watching you on how you explain the causes of the router but am still struggling to try to find my tower I have tried many options and still cant find it.. even with cell mapper. And as well as I kept track on deployments of 5G Towers and I have notice they deploy 2 towers that are closer to me, just waiting for it to turn on so I can be able to connect cause the tower am on is getting Throttled am not sure if Its the tower or the data cap on the T-Mobile home internet but I truly appreciate for the help!
You can use their coverage map to find the tower. Just keep click on the map near the place you think the tower is and look at the strength. Keep clicking around on the map until you get strong strength
Wow. That worked great, I used the T-Mo home internet app, I didn't realize it updates the numbers every few seconds. Went from SINR of 23 to SINR of 34 just by rotating the gateway a quarter turn. Didn't seem to change my down up speed test numbers but that could be the time of day. I generally get 650 down and 110 up fairly consistently. Funny thing is my new pixel 7 gets over 1000 Mbs down but I'm guessing its doing the dual band thing....?
Great and informative video again Nater. I hope that you could show us and explain what else you can do on web user interface particularly on Network tab on your next video. And can you tell us if its possible to connect to a specific tower that you wanted to be connected to. like on mobile phones there is an option for manually search network right? and then from there you will have an option to choose which you wanted to connect. Thanks!
Hey Delirium Gaming, I go thru all the settings (arent many.. 🙁) on this vid: ruclips.net/video/RQ1yQgTNz38/видео.html There is no way to band lock these gateways so you have to play games with location, shielding and or external antenna to help get the band you want.
Very informative channel you have thank you! Question: I get mostly good spends in morning and during the day “30-60mbps” but around 4pm everyday I get constant buffering every 3-4 mins sometimes and speeds slow down to 2-4 mbps. That can’t just be the tower is congested can it?
@@NaterTater yeah it’s unusable sometimes at night. Thanks for replying though. I will have to check again. But I’ve never gotten the speeds I’ve seen online of 100+ best I’ve ever seen is 65mbps and that’s with 3 bars of signal and in morning
I just got a T-Mobile gateway. My connection on the gateway shows 3 bars consistently. However, my speeds are erratic, from over 150 to less than 10, when it basically becomes useless. I think the variance is due to T-Mobile’s system and nothing I’m doing. My question is: would running a LAN cable between the gateway and my android tv help this issue at all?
maybe, only if your wifi is the issue though. You need to test the connection speed close to the gateway via wifi or via ethernet cable. If its slow there then its a t-mobile issue. If its always fast via ethernet then yes a LAN cable would help.
Thanks for the videos on the tower Nate. I just got my gateway tower a couple of days ago. I've gotten all of my devices, MacBook, phone and AppleTV hooked up, but can't get my printer to recognize the gateway signal. The printer is an mild use printer...(Epson XP 200). It is an older printer but still works fine for it's casual workload. Can you do a video on connecting printers? I've spent an aggregate of 2 hours on hold for Tech Support, but during these times...? Thanks Again.
William, your best bet maybe to to use ethernet to the gateway but maybe they aren't nearby each other. It looks like that printer is 802.11 b/g/n compatible (wireless protocol). Out of the box the gateway is default to ax/g so means your printer should work on the g protocol. You can go into the gateway webui and change the wi-fi 2.4GHz to include b or n protocols too. Another option is to change the SSID name for the 2.4GHz wifi as some devices dont like the "band steering" that allows the device to connect to 2.4 or 5GHz channels. Your printer can only connect to 2.4GHz b/g/n signal.
@@NaterTater Update: I did speak with Epson Support. (562) 276-1300. They instructed me to the driver downloads section over on the Intel website which require a PC. (I’m Mac only for now) So I’m currently using ethernet with my MacBook to connect to my Epson printer. I’m okay with that for now. (Casual Printer user here.) I’m very happy with the T-Mobile Gateway. Thanks for the advice! 👍🏾
For a two story home is it best to have it on the main floor? Also have a basement so I’m assuming that would provide the best coverage for the entire area. Tried to test it on the second floor but it showed a worse signal.
It all depends on your situation. Higher is not always better. Basement however is typically the worse. It can also be very sensitive to small movements/rotations.
Hey Nate, the problem I have is the signal comes and goes, sometimes I'm getting 100M then other times I'm getting 2 or 3, I'm also using a proxicast external antenna, any tips would be appreciated!
Move your antenna around and verify the best SNR or RSRQ. Also verify your tower location and band you are connected to. Is it the same tower/bands when fast and slow?
I have a question. When I placed the gateway upstairs, I got 4 bars signal more than 3 bars downstairs but the speed test indicated it is worse than downstairs. I thought the more bars the better for speed, is that correct?
My modem jumps from 5G to 4G no matter where I put it in my house and when in 5G speeds drop dramatically, any solution to this problem? Could the modem be faulty because I've had it for a few months now and it just started this a few weeks ago.
Everytime I try to enter the phone app, it says, "Gateway not set up." But it IS SET UP. It always says this when I try to enter the app. I'm getting so fed up with Tmobile internet.
position/orientation or use an external antenna (ruclips.net/video/tqyGXm3yASc/видео.html). But typically if you getting good DL/UL its not SNR causing your troubles, its lag/ping and or bufferbloat. ruclips.net/video/NsiLFP9_HtY/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/RAb1AWVFu3A/видео.html
Wifi range is very dependent on the surrounding environment. Walls and wall material, nearby interference, etc. I'll say its one of the best wifi ranges I've seen especially for internal only antennas.
I have a hiboost 10k. I purchased the antenna extension also a 3 way splitter almost with coaxial. Should my signal increase if I was to connect my booster directly to my cell booster it is 5g capable.
Thanks for this good video, Nater. In the first week, I notice the gateway was connected to band N41. These last 5 or 6 days I no longer get between 200 and 300mbps download during the night to almost lunchtime when started slowing down to under 100mbps and buffering videos at times. It's been consistent now between 40 and 80mbps download during these last few days. I just noticed that in the T-Mobile internet app I am connected to band N71. I might decide it's best to stay with this consistent reliable speed, but I'd like to experiment more before I settle. If I remember I did restart the gateway from the app, and that may have been when the connection switched bands, but I"m not sure. Is there a way to switch bands or do have to restart the gateway and hope for the switch to happen?
You cant lock it to a band. You can move the gateway to get a better signal on one band vs the other or restart is rolling the dice. External antenna can help.
@@NaterTater I just checked and it has switched back to N41 on its own. I'll have to lock it in, and I think it's a matter of getting the signal (SINR) up, which having trouble staying at 1. It goes down to -4 and that's the problem not that I can see what's going on. I may have to look into an external antenna. Thanks again!!!
It's been a couple days it seems that the switching between N41 and N71 on the B2 band. I believe the gateway is using the best signal at the time. I need to trust the gateway for where it is positioned in my house. Yesterday, I used an extension cord and sat on the ridge of my roof running three tests all providing over 300 Mbps download and good upload speeds. The best upload speed was 60 Mbps. If I really needed it, I would attach an antenna to that roof ridge point to see if I could grab that strong signal and bring it into the gateway where it is now. But for now, I'm satisfied even with the fluctuations. During the weekday mornings, I get 70 to just over 100 Mbps, and in the afternoon to evening, it gets 40 to 60 Mbps. I was concerned for a while when videos were buffing in the evenings, and sometimes stock quote feed was freezing near the close of the market. After some minor repositioning both in height and twisting the gateway here and there, I don't have that problem.
Thank you for this video. I did as you showed. Both of my closest towers don't show me in the path of the signal. My RSRP is -102 and SINR -3.5. Is there anything I can do to bring the signal into my home? I don't currently have any other internet choices. My speeds are sometimes none and sometimes less than a half megabyte down with no up! I appreciate any help!
That's apparently a common problem and I can't find anything useful about it. The closest I found was a suggestion to use a fan, which several people claimed helped, but I found no real difference. My signal strength for secondary is marginally less than for primary, and there's no reason I can think of for it to drop, but once it drops I have never gotten it back without a reboot. Download speeds are fine with 4G (up to 120) and are sometimes over 600 with 5G, but upload with 4G alone can be well under 5, and sometimes bordering on unusable. I hope that somebody can figure out something meaningful, but from what I've heard, calling T-mobile hasn't been helpful for people.
Hi! Thanks for the videos! I have a question, i've been using the service for a couple of days now and I've noticed i get faster speed via wifi vs being connected via ethernet. have you had any issues with that? I know you have it connected to a separate router. i currently have a Ubiquiti Network set up which works great with my comcast line. but when i connect the tmobile service via ethernet it just slows down :(. any tips will help!! Thanks again!
Is your router on 168 firmware? I've heard of others complaining of similar (and opposite) issue but i havent ran into that so not sure of best solution.
@@NaterTater yup. It’s on the 168 firmware. So weird. I had Tmobile replace the router thinking it’s defective. But the replacement is doing the same thing. Geez. On wifi I get 300-400 mb and on Ethernet I get 100-150 mb. 🤦🏽♂️
@@NaterTater Cat6 cable. I ran new Ethernet in home. Tmobile doesn’t give to much support 😑. But I when I connect my Comcast service everything is where it needs to be. So weird. I’m going to keep trying. But I think there’s something on the Ethernet port limiting the speed for some reason.
I have read previously that the wired Ethernet ports on the trash can gateway have substandard throughput. I cannot substantiate that, but just for context, desktop 6-port gigabit Ethernet switches do vary greatly in their performance and throughput. So it's disappointing - but not surprising - that the WiFi on the gateway is faster than the wired Ethernet.
I was stuck with att 10 mbps for 3 years until this became available at my address finally few months ago but hasn't changed much. I get 2 bars 5G most places I move it and majority of time I only get 4G with 3 bars and that's still not really usable to stream. I've moved it everywhere even did the app signal finder for best spot still no better than 2 bars if that. getting ready to move outside see what signal that does and if its good then probably just gonna build something outside to protect it and put it out there.
No matter what ive done my 5g isn't available.. ive called and theyve told me my 5g is activated and then i go to the gui and it tells me its disconnected.
My tower is right across the street from me about 200 yards away but I can only get 3 bars. I still get 200mbs down and 20 up though. Is there an antenna with cord I can buy so I can put the antenna next to my window or maybe even outside?
Nate, in the video at 14:37 you can see the PCI numbers 53 and 317 for primary (4G) and secondary (5G), correspondingly. I know that you can go into cellmapper and see the PCI numbers for the current connection as well. Seems like you would be able to confirm that 4G and 5G were connected to the same tower if both PCI numbers were present in the stats on the selected tower in Cellmapper. Have you by chance tried that?
yes I think that is a valid way too. I'm not positive but I don't think the PCI is a unique identifier though. As in there is only one 3102605894157 CGI but I assume there are multiple 53 PCI out there. Probably safe to assume there aren't duplicates in PCI in one area though so maybe that is a quicker way to find your tower?
@@NaterTater Right, I was going on the assumption that the PCI numbers were not duplicated within, say a county or other region. Most recently have been using the method that you described to ID the towers. Thanks again!
Hi ! OK so my question/ help I need Is a little crazy sounding to start with because of the circumstances of it all , I have the home internet but it's technically not available at my rural address where I moved so one of the techs had me use my grandma address in town where it is avaliable and told me bring it home hook it in that should still work because of how it goes off the towers , well I'm a gamer , it's my only hobby really anymore being disabled , call of duty on Playstation 4 , well my signal is trash and if anyone is connected other then me I can't even game at all for the lag can't can't make it thru a window throws me back out haha, and even if I'm only one on the network it still does pretty bad I've never got to three bars singal lucky to get to 2 and it's only once or twice been over 10mbps normally around 2-6mbps and down to nothing but kbps if anyone else is on my wifi at all , I know it's a long shot but do y9u have any advice or tips on making this work better for me ? I don't know what to do all that is available for my address is satellite internet like viasat and I'm hearing that it's darn near impossible to game online multi-player fps games like call of duty with their service.thoughts ? Thanks Crystal Aka Luna
First, you should verify what type of signal/coverage you have at your house. To get better signal try moving the gateway to different spots in your house. Also try an external antenna: ruclips.net/video/IEvWOywIh1Q/видео.html
Apparently, T-Mobile isn't good for my needs. I just got it set up today and have placed it in the areas closest to my tower which is only around 2 miles away and only get two bars...weak signal. I do have a slight better speed than what I have with Comcast so not sure what I'm going to do at this point. Very disappointed as I thought I would have at least 4/5 bars on the signal. I have two weeks to try it out but for the past 6 hours the speed has just gotten slightly better. I hit 175 mbps but it's currently 11pm at night.
Bars don't matter that much, you certainly don't need 4/5 bars to have great service. Additionally the bars on the screen is just the 4G primary signal, you likely are also getting a 5G signal. My 5G signal is better than my 4G signal.
I just got this and ran a speed test the highest I could get was 50mbps for download and 40 for upload. And that’s only 12am and I called the customer service and basically told me the cellular towers are undergoing “enhancement”, is there such thing as enhancement? Or am I just being BS so I wouldn’t return and refund it because the only consistent thing i’ve been getting morning till noon is 1.15 mbps to 10 for download and 20 for upload.
The very bad thing with wireless is nobody is the same speed. Yet they are all the same price. So and so with 2 bars is not the same as 4 bars. I commend Tmobile for rocking the boat though. It takes this to keep the others in line. Bad thing for me is that I can't get service from them because my certified approved 911 address is not in their system while my neighbors is. Not cool. Also is it such a bad thing to know your towers in your area on a map? I have looked and nothing was clear not even opensignal.
Got this a week ago. It was super fast at first. I was downloading at about 230mps. This last weekend it dropped to 15mps. With 5G showing as N/A. Any idea what’s going on?
@@NaterTater That happened to me as well. I called them and they said my unit had switched to a 4G tower. They switched it back to a 5G tower and the speed went back up to 410 mbps.
I have the old white gateway. It worked great for about 6 months and then all of a sudden it stopped. They sent me a new gateway today (another white one) and I’m having the same issue. It says I have very good signal but none of my devices will connect to WiFi. When I connect my phone for instance it will not allow me to open a browser page in safari
I had T-mobile 5G for a few months and it was working great. Just prior to 10/21/21 I had gotten close to 100mbps. Then on 10/21/21 something happened. Long story short T-mobile has no clue. I think it is a tower issue. Anyway, I have a LPDA directional antenna TD18002500LC-8.5 Freq 800-2500MHz Gain 8.5dBi. It has one N Female connection. So can I use it with the 5G Gateway? If so, I guess I would have to have a Y connector. Do you have an idea what I need?
You would need another LPDA to make a pair and two connectors. Needs to be a MIMO setup. But you need to check which freq band you get to make sure your antenna will work.
@@NaterTater thanks...I activated mine gateway yesterday and it was super fast at 210MB but it is super slow today at 15MB....tower was in same location but big difference in speed....is it congestion or low priority data? any idea?
If you've gone thru 3 gateways then I doubt all of them are defective. Either you dont have good service, things aren't configured correctly or something else. Did you try changing the wifi channel bandwidth?
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Be sure to see my other Verizon and T-Mobile Home Internet Videos:
Verizon: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNSOcTz7L6sHiuWVQXwUT4my
T-mobile: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNQHp0KWk8gG8XXvaKzaoSB3
Peplink cellular devices: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNTZR2vUJWyd6kmmDD6ediym
While trying to find the best place for my T-Mobile gateway I just happened to set it on the fold out shelf of a 6ft aluminum step ladder that I had out in the garage. The signal instantly went to 3 bars and I finally got the secondary ( 5G ) connection. I've had it out on the ladder for 3 days now and the performance has been terrific. So if you're having trouble you might give this a try.
For those that care, I have this modem, I downloaded a 14 gig file in 12 min. It used to take all night on DSL.
I wish that was the case for me. My speeds, as of late, are absolute garbage. 6 Mbps down and 0.9 up. I'm starting to hate this junk.
@@thatunknownguy2680 same, I primarily use it for gaming but this is by far giving me the worst gaming experience I've ever had with the constant lag/low ping, and disconnects
20 gig in like 12 minutes so this is actually decent speed ,and I mean I have gigablast down which gives me about nine hundred Megs down and 35 up but for the price I'm paying it's not worth it if I have 4 bars in this thing I get at least 600 makes down and 70 up
@@MegaManman12345 Did you ever get the ping solved? I also like gaming sometimes and while my d/l speeds are great my ping is 100ms+ and I have about 8% packet loss which really hurts realtime gaming
@@KevinWatt13 unfortunately no. It still gives my xbox packet loss, ping issues and lags on heavy multiplayer games, like warzone and nba 2k. Everything else and it works great. So I haven't figured out how to resolve that problem. Sorry.
Your information is revolutionary to my 5G internet. Life is much happier after watching this video.
Great to hear 👍!
Thank you so much for your videos on T-Mobile Home Internet! I've had it for a week, not thrilled with it overall until I found your videos. Your videos helped me tremendously and now I'm loving the service - great speeds, much better signal. THANKS!!!
Awesome! Great to hear I helped Scott.
Thanks for the info. Just got my gateway today and kept having connection issues. Kept having the no internet uplug for 10 seconds prompt. It would be nice and fast then loose signal. All I was looking at was the bars and it said good. The metrics are in a different location now. I got my SIRN up to about 18.2-20 now and haven't lost signal yet. I'm getting roughly 80Mbps down and 20up pretty steady. Good enough for me.
Thank you so much! I wondered if the direction of the Gateway made a difference and was able to get my RSRP to -93 from -111 and the SNR to 11 from 19 which has made a massive increase in my download capacity!
Awesome. Yes its crazy how sensitive it is.
After watching several videos about TMobil 5G I am left with the impression that one has to work at getting the best signal, that better internet signal/service is not a given if you switch to TMobil 5G. I am with Comcast where I don't have that hassle. I am not a power user but do expect good streaming video. So your information is very valuable and appreciated, thank you.
That's correct for many folks
Incomparable the difference this made. I went from teeter totttering between 4G to 5G and getting only 30Mbps to 20SNI 0 and 1 RSRQ and 200+ MBPs. MUCH better and more stable. I had it on the second floor center of the house near an outside window where I THOUGHT my antenna was found out it was in the opposite direction out it on the north side of the house and Incomparable
Glad it helped
I would cut guy to get that 30Mbps with mine. I range 5-10 down, and about 1.8 up. My ring cams look like ass. Blurry ass...
One thing to note - even if your phone uses T-Mobile or one of its MVNOs (e.g. Mint Mobile, Boost), the tower that your phone connects to and the tower that your Gateway connects to may still be different. And even if they both connect to the same tower, they may connect to that tower differently - resulting in different BANDW readings for the gateway (5M , 10M, 20M). Nate, thanks for maintaining this RUclips channel!
good info Eric!
Doesn't bandw mean bandwidth? 20 meters is 14 MHz. 10 meters is 28 MHz
@@Bryan-Hensley I do believe that bandw is bandwidth. How that relates to wavelength (e.g. meters) in the context of cellular networks is unknown to me.
This app was created especially to use it with T-Mobile home internet, so it should show everything for your gateway, not for your phone
@@vladspb_ tmo home internet app does show info just for the gateway.
When I signed up for TMO Home, the first 6 months was a struggle low speeds most of time 10-20Mbps in peak hours 60-120Mbps night time but after they tweaked the towers around everything improved drastically 200- 300 Mbps all the time, I've seen all the way to 600 Mbps with 2 bars.. has anyone experienced the same, by the way doesn't matter which way I set it in my garage, it works.
This was by far the most detailed and helpful video on this topic by the most competent person
Whoa! Thanks for the compliments 😊
But why should you need help from strangers? I'm not going to do tmobile's job for them, AND pay them $50 per month! Do the math, all they're doing is stringing along millions of customers to keep their shareholders happy
@@RaysMuleBarn the power of social media (including RUclips) is we can collaborate, share and help each other out. Nobody, company or device is perfect but atleast we can share our experiences and knowledge to improve together.
@@RaysMuleBarn then use a different provider then. No one is forcing you to use them
What website is that tower page
Have you done any tests, etc for signal loss with Low E Glass? T-Mobile says to put in front of a window but I'm seeing there may be issues with doing that if you have energy efficient windows with Low E coating
Thank you so much for doing this video I learned a lot and took a couple of screen captures and also took some notes down. This video was an excellent on education on cell technology.
Thanks!
Hopefully T-Mobile will carry a router with an external antenna soon.
Definitely consider contributing to the CellMapper data when driving around town! You can pinpoint the towers within a few weeks of using it for a few hours a day if you drive often :D
I should add that cell napper can be insanely accurate or insanely inaccurate. It all depends on the amount of data points i can use (user generated). A lot of times people in cell mapper is people just driving by a tower and disconnecting, and so for example, on freeways it looks like the tower is exactly on the freeway but it may really be on the other side of the freeway a half a mile away. At first this kind of put me off I thought cellmapper was just very inaccurate but when I started to use it a lot to collect data it's amazingly underrated! Make sure to set your minimum recording interval to 1 second so that you can get your mapping completed much faster, by default I think it only takes a data point every 15 seconds which is a really long time while going 20+mph
@@yfs9035 i assumed cell mapper can only see your phone's carrier's towers and not even other CDMA signals that my phone could technically see I think (Verizon). So my data will help Verizon mapping but not t-mobile.
Thank you. I will try it when my equipment arrives.
T-Mobile home internet for me I get speeds between 425-660 down and 65-75 up. I’m lucky I live on higher ground I guess. It’s also been stable so far (been a week).
This video helps out a lot. What I'm noticing is that currently, there's always this "trade off" between better SINR numbers and worse RSRP numbers. So if the RSRP numbers gets to an ideal range, the SINR gets a lot worse. Right now, a lot of people don't have power due to the bad storms that rolled through here this past Monday, so some signal towers might be offline. But that's what I'm noticing in the numbers now, and I wonder if that's normal?
I'd say its not abnormal. SINR typically is the one I aim to maximize but it depends how good signal and noise are to begin with.
@@NaterTater I wonder...if it does that because it temporarily connected to a 4g LTE signal while looking for another 5g one? When it does that, most times the 5g band value goes away, and what appears is a " - ". Or am I getting too nerdy? LOL Anyway, I finally found the sweet spot in my room. I stay in an attic room (2 story bungalow), and have my laptop on a dresser near a window and the roof. My laptop is next to the window, while the lowest point of the slope of the roof is about 8 feet from the window, and that's where I just put the gateway, on top of old magazines in a mini magazine rack. Ironic how I had to set the gateway farther away from the window to get a better signal...
RSRQ: -11
RSRP: -86
SINR: 25.2
the value for SINR would normally be in the lower teens to upper single digits, and RSRP would be in the triple digits near the window.
@@TivonSanders the - means it lost 5G and/or was switching towers/bands on 5G. A -86 RSRP is a stronger signal than a -105 dB RSRP. Sounds like you found a good place. Your laptop placement should affect anything so long as you have reasonable wifi signal.
@@NaterTater Yep, the WiFi signal itself that Windows is reporting is excellent. It better be; my gateway is less then 4 feet from my laptop. LOL
I have the older 4G LTE device. My SINR is -3.5. I'm having a very hard time getting any service lately. It was good whenever I got it, but lately it's been absolutely terrible. Some days it doesn't even connect to the internet. T-Mobile tells me, "The tower is down" so much that I'm about to get rid of their junky service all together.
Hey Nate, your videos are great, thank you so much.
I love the T-Mobile internet and you’ve helped me navigate it so that it works better. I am still not very successful at streaming my Hulu live tv and it’s tiring to call Hulu all the time because the fix is always temporary (sometimes 5minutes, sometimes a day)
My question is, is this my T-Mobile or is this Hulu? My gateways is at 4 bars always no matter where in my home I put it.
Thanks to anyone out there with help and advice!
Hi Holly, its t-mobile. Typically it settles after a while and hulu ends up adding all "your" public facing IP addresses. Sounds like that isnt happening for you though. There are options like using a VPN to help provide a consistent "location" but take some setup.
Thanks for your videos they helped so much! Receive a Tmobile gateway and its running great. Really fast so much faster than xfinity really impressed. Was not expecting this kind of speeds.
Great to hear!
Thank you sir this really helped me I watched your external antenna vid I might try that too God Bless You
You're welcome!
I heard they had nokia disable the battery backup so folks wouldn't take the router to other locations. The old white routers you could do this. Also the white router battery backup is a huge plus when the electric goes out you can still get internet for four hrs I think it is.
Perhaps but its not hard to hook up an external battery. I think they will enable it in the future.
Thanks ! Just got my unit yesterday, everything is working good, but there isnt much info available. Their app is seriously lacking useful information. The only issue I have had was my wifi bulbs needs 2.4 Ghz wifi and the unit defaults to 5 Ghz. Figured it out, then wanted to get the best signal for it.
You're welcome!
Hello, I just ran across your videos when looking up the Arcadyan device I've convinced them to send me.
I just had a question: When looking at the cell tower metrics, what does it mean when some things are showing up as blank? ( It just shows a hyphen)
Thanks for watching, see this video to solve that exact problem! ruclips.net/video/fht_Uj7hAbA/видео.html
Thanks Nate. This was a very good video. I understand more about the RSRQ and SNR now. I was always a little unsure about that.
Also one other thing, I from the 1st day I watched you videos I was thinking that you sure look someone I know. But today I finally figured it out.
You remind me of Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump. LOL Really.. Is there anyone else who see this?
😄 yes i've gotten that since college!
Lt. Dan! Yes. Well, I cannot unsee that now lol
@@NaterTater Lt. Dan! Ice-cream! LOL
More than anything you have a very similar voice to Gary Sinese. Total badass in my book.
My service is great with the T-Mobile internet I have four signal bars didn’t have to move the router out here in Indiana.
Good!
Great video Nate. Found out mine isn’t connected to 5G.
Thanks! Guess you need to attach a extension cord reel and get up on that roof 😄
I just got my 5G Home Internet, and your videos are really helpful in identifying some of the issues with consistency I've been having, thanks a lot! I did have a question, is it normal for the signal to jump to different cell towers? I'm wondering if going from different towers is the main reason my internet speeds are so wildly inconsistent.
Its not preferred but it does happen to some. Not common but also not unheard of. You do want to try to prevent it. Do this by moving the gateway elsewhere or blocking the unwanted signal with aluminum foil (between gateway and unwanted tower).
@@NaterTater I'll try that, thanks!
We purchased the Tmobile home internet so my daughter may work remotely. We've been successful hooking all home devices EXCEPT her work computer. We are told there is a VPN or Port Forwarding issue. Any suggestions or a quick list of steps to follow to get her up and running? Thank you!!!
Hi Sharon, if she has a work VPN then she likely needs to change the MTU size. That can be done on her laptop settings. Default is 1500, likely needs to go to 1320-1430 range to work on cellular based internet. You'll have to google how to do it for her specific VPN or computer operating system (ie windows 10). Here's some other videos where i've touch on it T-Mobile Home Internet 5G 4G LTE Wireless: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNQHp0KWk8gG8XXvaKzaoSB3
Hi Nate. I love all your content dealing with the T-Mobile internet. I have a quick question. Would placing the Nokia TMobile modem on tv table behind tv affect the signal? Thank you
Yes and no. In general you may see big differences in signal depending where you place it. For some behind the tv may be worse, others it will be better. Place it where YOU get the best signal/speed.
@@NaterTater thank you Nate. Also I have the fan that connects on top of the Nokia modem. Does it matter if connect the fan directly to the modem or connect it to a wall outlet. I have it to a wall outlet right now. Thanks again.
@Julio Hernandez either works. Wall is probably "better" but mine has always been on the gateway.
man thank you so much that was very very helpful and I tested it out and everything worked fine that was so awesome I'm getting way faster speeds now thank you so very much and faster upload
Awesome!
Have you compared TMO using TMHI vs a TMO SIM in another router like a Cudy or Mofi?
Very much appreciated the in-depth tech review. It convinced me to try T-Mo 5G Home and I'm pleased with the results.
Since my office is an old military electronics shop, it is pretty much a Faraday cage, preventing me from receiving signals internally. I ended up mounting my unit on the roof in an inverted 5-gallon bucket w/lid and some ventilation holes. Although I only get 2 bars signal, d/l is pretty consistently 120Mbps. It has survived a few significant thunderstorms without incident; summer heat might be another issue. Might consider mounting on a pole later to improve reception.
You're welcome brent. You sound like a good candidate for an external antenna so you can keep the gateway inside but have an antenna outside for signal. See my other videos.
@@NaterTater I had also seen that video (and thank you for it, as well.) Based on your mixed results, I didn't feel adding an external antenna was worth the effort.
It is notable that many modern systems seek to minimize antenna lead length (e.g., Starlink, Insty) in order to reduce db loss. (The mobile modem is placed in the same housing as the antenna and USB or ethernet cable runs out.)
Since the T-Mobile system already has a pretty good antenna array. Just weatherproofing the whole thing seemed a better approach without tearing it open or investing in antennas tuned for the specific frequencies T-Mobile uses.
If I want to improve the signal, I would first try mounting the unit on a raised pole before adding external antennas.
@Brent Jackson - You put the 5G Gateway that he's showing in the video...on your roof? Hmmm...pics please? And how would you mount it on a pole?
@@LayDeeTee1 my first iteration was to put it in an inverted 5 gallon plastic bucket (from Lowe's or HD).
I used a soldering iron to punch ventilation holes low and high in the bucket, plus to run cables and power in. Hot glued in a little steel wool as a barrier to keep bugs out.
This was set on the flat roof of my my workshop trailer. Lived there happily for almost a year, through hot sun and big rains.
@@LayDeeTee1 After a big storm finally knocked down my bucket setup, I put the device up on a pole.
It is in a 6" PVC tube with an inverted plastic flower pot on top. The bottom is a round cut 1" plywood insert with a whole in the middle mating to the pole and to accommodate cables. The pole is an extendable aluminum one for cleaning pools. Cables run down the inside of the pole and into my shop.
Total elevation is about 20' above ground. Getting much better reception than with the bucket (~200Mbps down). Also more reliable (maybe 1 reboot per week).
If I were to do it over, I would use a sturdier pole, but it is holding up OK.
As of now, T-Mobile's Tech support says there's no problem using my Printer-USBc cable in my Nokia gateway, to enable Wireless printing with my "Bare-Bones" Canon printer thru my phone. I tried to get them to answer this question 4 months ago, but they didn't understand my question.
Sorry if this has been covered...but other than moving the gateway box around in my house to get a better signal, is there a way for me to manually select a different tower to connect to? thx!
Oops...just saw the same question in other comments. No reply needed. thx
Which is more important? The RSRP or the signal to noise ratio?
both are important. good RSRP can be worthless with lots of noise/interference. RSRQ is sorta a combined metric if you want to try to optimize just one value.
Can you access this information with a normal browser portal? I don't use phones or apps.
Nvm, guess you get into it later in the video.
Nate. I’m south of you just north of Toledo. I tried the gateway for 3 weeks and sent it back because in the evening there was so much traffic my speeds would fall below 5mps. They finally told me in my area that cell phones had access to the 5G network but the gateway did not. I’m going to try it again once they confirm that 5G is active for the gateway in my area.
They said April 1st roll out. Everyone right now is technically a beta user.
Great vid, but I’m having trouble finding the cell/cell tower. My CGI number doesn’t show up in any of the towers within a 10 mile radius of me, and there are dozens. Is there any way I can type it in, or is there another way to search for the tower my gateway is connected to? My speeds are terrible, maxing out at 25mbps and has been as slow as 0.9!! Thanks!
You can try using the PCI #
@@NaterTater I found the cell. Where I live there are a stack of towers on top of each other. You have to click around for the right one to come to the top. Thanks!
Does your gateway forget settings if you unplug power overnight? Thumbs up and subscribed!
Thank you Nate. Found the video! Very informative.
You do not have to do all this. Under "Home" on the tmobile internet app is a link called "More about connection quality" and there you can launch the placement assistant which can locate the nearest tower
I found that closest tower does not always provide the best signal and data rate. The number of bars is also not the best indicator of data rate. I found that optimizing Quality and Signal to Noise (getting most positive readings) produces the best performance. I now get 50-75 Mbps consistently and occasionally 150Mbps.
@@willardvanosten4584 I’ve been getting up to 400Mbps to 500
Can u help me I just got 5g home internet and it's slow buffering but I have good signal 4 out of 5 bars but it buffers allot I tried calling the it of internet TMobile they can't help me if u can that would be great I have a 1 yr old and cartoons are his only way to not be hyper
Hey man Thanks for the tips, I have been watching you on how you explain the causes of the router but am still struggling to try to find my tower I have tried many options and still cant find it.. even with cell mapper. And as well as I kept track on deployments of 5G Towers and I have notice they deploy 2 towers that are closer to me, just waiting for it to turn on so I can be able to connect cause the tower am on is getting Throttled am not sure if Its the tower or the data cap on the T-Mobile home internet but I truly appreciate for the help!
You're welcome. There is no data cap but there is prioritization where home internet is the bottom rung during busy times on the network.
You can use their coverage map to find the tower. Just keep click on the map near the place you think the tower is and look at the strength. Keep clicking around on the map until you get strong strength
@@NaterTater Oh and One more Thing is it possible to get a open Nat type?
@@lilpill6720 I dont game but yes sounds like you get open NAT but you can't create or join xbox parties still. They are working to fix that.
Wow.
That worked great, I used the T-Mo home internet app, I didn't realize it updates the numbers every few seconds.
Went from SINR of 23 to SINR of 34 just by rotating the gateway a quarter turn.
Didn't seem to change my down up speed test numbers but that could be the time of day.
I generally get 650 down and 110 up fairly consistently.
Funny thing is my new pixel 7 gets over 1000 Mbs down but I'm guessing its doing the dual band thing....?
Great speeds! Yes likely your phone is aggregating 5G and also not deprioritized.
My phone is not compatiable with the home internet app so can i just do it thru laptop. Im expecting delivery today
Thank you so much brother this help a ton
You're welcome!
Thanks Nater, this was super helpful. It looks like my app has info on the 5G signal as well, which makes the process even easier!
Yes they added it finally with an app update. Glad it helped
Great and informative video again Nater. I hope that you could show us and explain what else you can do on web user interface particularly on Network tab on your next video. And can you tell us if its possible to connect to a specific tower that you wanted to be connected to. like on mobile phones there is an option for manually search network right? and then from there you will have an option to choose which you wanted to connect. Thanks!
Hey Delirium Gaming, I go thru all the settings (arent many.. 🙁) on this vid: ruclips.net/video/RQ1yQgTNz38/видео.html There is no way to band lock these gateways so you have to play games with location, shielding and or external antenna to help get the band you want.
Very informative channel you have thank you! Question: I get mostly good spends in morning and during the day “30-60mbps” but around 4pm everyday I get constant buffering every 3-4 mins sometimes and speeds slow down to 2-4 mbps. That can’t just be the tower is congested can it?
That seems excessive for just congestion but it could be. Do you notice your cellular band/tower switching during that time too?
@@NaterTater yeah it’s unusable sometimes at night. Thanks for replying though. I will have to check again. But I’ve never gotten the speeds I’ve seen online of 100+ best I’ve ever seen is 65mbps and that’s with 3 bars of signal and in morning
@@chrisskow1855 speeds vary greatly based on which cellular bands you get at your house. Some get close to 1Gbps but just depends on your signals.
@@NaterTater I’ll check later and message you again. Thanks for replying!
I just got a T-Mobile gateway. My connection on the gateway shows 3 bars consistently. However, my speeds are erratic, from over 150 to less than 10, when it basically becomes useless. I think the variance is due to T-Mobile’s system and nothing I’m doing. My question is: would running a LAN cable between the gateway and my android tv help this issue at all?
maybe, only if your wifi is the issue though. You need to test the connection speed close to the gateway via wifi or via ethernet cable. If its slow there then its a t-mobile issue. If its always fast via ethernet then yes a LAN cable would help.
I get a measly 9.4 mbps. I haven't moved it, but I used to get at laest 40 mbps.
Thanks for the videos on the tower Nate. I just got my gateway tower a couple of days ago. I've gotten all of my devices, MacBook, phone and AppleTV hooked up, but can't get my printer to recognize the gateway signal. The printer is an mild use printer...(Epson XP 200). It is an older printer but still works fine for it's casual workload.
Can you do a video on connecting printers? I've spent an aggregate of 2 hours on hold for Tech Support, but during these times...?
Thanks Again.
William, your best bet maybe to to use ethernet to the gateway but maybe they aren't nearby each other. It looks like that printer is 802.11 b/g/n compatible (wireless protocol). Out of the box the gateway is default to ax/g so means your printer should work on the g protocol. You can go into the gateway webui and change the wi-fi 2.4GHz to include b or n protocols too. Another option is to change the SSID name for the 2.4GHz wifi as some devices dont like the "band steering" that allows the device to connect to 2.4 or 5GHz channels. Your printer can only connect to 2.4GHz b/g/n signal.
@@NaterTater Update:
I did speak with Epson Support. (562) 276-1300. They instructed me to the driver downloads section over on the Intel website which require a PC. (I’m Mac only for now) So I’m currently using ethernet with my MacBook to connect to my Epson printer. I’m okay with that for now.
(Casual Printer user here.)
I’m very happy with the T-Mobile Gateway.
Thanks for the advice! 👍🏾
For a two story home is it best to have it on the main floor? Also have a basement so I’m assuming that would provide the best coverage for the entire area. Tried to test it on the second floor but it showed a worse signal.
It all depends on your situation. Higher is not always better. Basement however is typically the worse. It can also be very sensitive to small movements/rotations.
Hey Nate, the problem I have is the signal comes and goes, sometimes I'm getting 100M then other times I'm getting 2 or 3, I'm also using a proxicast external antenna, any tips would be appreciated!
Move your antenna around and verify the best SNR or RSRQ. Also verify your tower location and band you are connected to. Is it the same tower/bands when fast and slow?
Haha I thought the map looked familiar 🤣. Hi neighbor. 5G too spotty by me.
Thanks for the heads-up... will the internet charge be added to my automatic withdrawal?
I have a question. When I placed the gateway upstairs, I got 4 bars signal more than 3 bars downstairs but the speed test indicated it is worse than downstairs. I thought the more bars the better for speed, is that correct?
No, more bars is not always better. It matters what bands you are on.
Great video! I can't locate my tower though. My band shows as B25 which also isn't listed on Cellmapper. Any idea what band that is?
Thats a sprint band so have sprint selected in cellmapper
Band 2 is a subset of 25, it way originally used by sprint
My modem jumps from 5G to 4G no matter where I put it in my house and when in 5G speeds drop dramatically, any solution to this problem? Could the modem be faulty because I've had it for a few months now and it just started this a few weeks ago.
A 3rd party router could fix that. Can band lock to 4G. ruclips.net/video/svwZQEuJiss/видео.html
Everytime I try to enter the phone app, it says, "Gateway not set up." But it IS SET UP. It always says this when I try to enter the app. I'm getting so fed up with Tmobile internet.
Sorry, I'm trying to find the video of the 2 websites used, one was cellmapper but what was the line of sight one?
ruclips.net/video/D1OoJqEc4os/видео.html
Any tips to improve SNR? I'm getting very high DL/UL speeds, but the SNR is causing choppiness when playing online games
position/orientation or use an external antenna (ruclips.net/video/tqyGXm3yASc/видео.html). But typically if you getting good DL/UL its not SNR causing your troubles, its lag/ping and or bufferbloat. ruclips.net/video/NsiLFP9_HtY/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/RAb1AWVFu3A/видео.html
If the manufacturer doesn't list it in the specs sheet, how do I know the distance range of my 5G modem?
Wifi range is very dependent on the surrounding environment. Walls and wall material, nearby interference, etc. I'll say its one of the best wifi ranges I've seen especially for internal only antennas.
I have a hiboost 10k. I purchased the antenna extension also a 3 way splitter almost with coaxial. Should my signal increase if I was to connect my booster directly to my cell booster it is 5g capable.
I dont follow but in general boosters arent helpful. Increase signal and noise.
Hello I put in my tower info in to cellmaper. And it show it in. Florida
I am in. Socal
Thanks for this good video, Nater. In the first week, I notice the gateway was connected to band N41. These last 5 or 6 days I no longer get between 200 and 300mbps download during the night to almost lunchtime when started slowing down to under 100mbps and buffering videos at times. It's been consistent now between 40 and 80mbps download during these last few days. I just noticed that in the T-Mobile internet app I am connected to band N71. I might decide it's best to stay with this consistent reliable speed, but I'd like to experiment more before I settle. If I remember I did restart the gateway from the app, and that may have been when the connection switched bands, but I"m not sure. Is there a way to switch bands or do have to restart the gateway and hope for the switch to happen?
You cant lock it to a band. You can move the gateway to get a better signal on one band vs the other or restart is rolling the dice. External antenna can help.
@@NaterTater I just checked and it has switched back to N41 on its own. I'll have to lock it in, and I think it's a matter of getting the signal (SINR) up, which having trouble staying at 1. It goes down to -4 and that's the problem not that I can see what's going on. I may have to look into an external antenna. Thanks again!!!
It's been a couple days it seems that the switching between N41 and N71 on the B2 band. I believe the gateway is using the best signal at the time. I need to trust the gateway for where it is positioned in my house. Yesterday, I used an extension cord and sat on the ridge of my roof running three tests all providing over 300 Mbps download and good upload speeds. The best upload speed was 60 Mbps. If I really needed it, I would attach an antenna to that roof ridge point to see if I could grab that strong signal and bring it into the gateway where it is now. But for now, I'm satisfied even with the fluctuations. During the weekday mornings, I get 70 to just over 100 Mbps, and in the afternoon to evening, it gets 40 to 60 Mbps. I was concerned for a while when videos were buffing in the evenings, and sometimes stock quote feed was freezing near the close of the market. After some minor repositioning both in height and twisting the gateway here and there, I don't have that problem.
@@NaterTater Do you have a video that shows how I can lock the Arcadyan Gateway to a band? Thanks!
@@jeffreypaulify I wish! Havent seen a way to force a specific band other than trying different placement/antennas.
Thank you for this video. I did as you showed. Both of my closest towers don't show me in the path of the signal. My RSRP is -102 and SINR -3.5. Is there anything I can do to bring the signal into my home? I don't currently have any other internet choices. My speeds are sometimes none and sometimes less than a half megabyte down with no up! I appreciate any help!
Try outside and different heights. If you can find a place with OK speed you could put an external antenna up (see my other videos).
Great video !!! Do you ever have issues with the secondary signal dropping? Mine connects at reboot but I loose it shortly after.
That's apparently a common problem and I can't find anything useful about it. The closest I found was a suggestion to use a fan, which several people claimed helped, but I found no real difference. My signal strength for secondary is marginally less than for primary, and there's no reason I can think of for it to drop, but once it drops I have never gotten it back without a reboot. Download speeds are fine with 4G (up to 120) and are sometimes over 600 with 5G, but upload with 4G alone can be well under 5, and sometimes bordering on unusable. I hope that somebody can figure out something meaningful, but from what I've heard, calling T-mobile hasn't been helpful for people.
Also do u think the tinfoil trick on the external antenna is worth a try?
Some people report sucess. Good thing is its cheap and quick to try.
how to find the tower ?? what website go for it
Is it better to mesh or does it work better alone....I'm asking cuz I ordered this and it'll be here tomorrow and my house has dead spots
The gateway itself has good signal strength/coverage. You should test it out to see if it meets your needs. If not i would recommend a mesh setup.
Hi! Thanks for the videos! I have a question, i've been using the service for a couple of days now and I've noticed i get faster speed via wifi vs being connected via ethernet. have you had any issues with that? I know you have it connected to a separate router. i currently have a Ubiquiti Network set up which works great with my comcast line. but when i connect the tmobile service via ethernet it just slows down :(. any tips will help!! Thanks again!
Is your router on 168 firmware? I've heard of others complaining of similar (and opposite) issue but i havent ran into that so not sure of best solution.
@@NaterTater yup. It’s on the 168 firmware. So weird. I had Tmobile replace the router thinking it’s defective. But the replacement is doing the same thing. Geez. On wifi I get 300-400 mb and on Ethernet I get 100-150 mb. 🤦🏽♂️
@@ericsavinon1783 what type of ethernet cable are you using? Should use CAT5e or better.
@@NaterTater Cat6 cable. I ran new Ethernet in home. Tmobile doesn’t give to much support 😑. But I when I connect my Comcast service everything is where it needs to be. So weird. I’m going to keep trying. But I think there’s something on the Ethernet port limiting the speed for some reason.
I have read previously that the wired Ethernet ports on the trash can gateway have substandard throughput. I cannot substantiate that, but just for context, desktop 6-port gigabit Ethernet switches do vary greatly in their performance and throughput. So it's disappointing - but not surprising - that the WiFi on the gateway is faster than the wired Ethernet.
thanks for this video, informative and very helpful.
You're welcome!
So can you change the band that it is currently on? Also if you can change it will it stay on the band that you change it too?
No and no. 😂
I was stuck with att 10 mbps for 3 years until this became available at my address finally few months ago but hasn't changed much. I get 2 bars 5G most places I move it and majority of time I only get 4G with 3 bars and that's still not really usable to stream. I've moved it everywhere even did the app signal finder for best spot still no better than 2 bars if that. getting ready to move outside see what signal that does and if its good then probably just gonna build something outside to protect it and put it out there.
What lte modem is in the tmobile trash can?
No matter what ive done my 5g isn't available.. ive called and theyve told me my 5g is activated and then i go to the gui and it tells me its disconnected.
8 digits... my t-mobile tower in Dpuglas az....... 9 digits ... the sprint tower a mile away from me ..... not just 7 digits like you said....
This is extremely helpful. Thank you!!!
You're welcome!
My tower is right across the street from me about 200 yards away but I can only get 3 bars. I still get 200mbs down and 20 up though. Is there an antenna with cord I can buy so I can put the antenna next to my window or maybe even outside?
Timely question! See yesterday's video ruclips.net/video/tqyGXm3yASc/видео.html
@@NaterTater okay will do thanks for your informative videos.
Nate, in the video at 14:37 you can see the PCI numbers 53 and 317 for primary (4G) and secondary (5G), correspondingly. I know that you can go into cellmapper and see the PCI numbers for the current connection as well. Seems like you would be able to confirm that 4G and 5G were connected to the same tower if both PCI numbers were present in the stats on the selected tower in Cellmapper. Have you by chance tried that?
yes I think that is a valid way too. I'm not positive but I don't think the PCI is a unique identifier though. As in there is only one 3102605894157 CGI but I assume there are multiple 53 PCI out there. Probably safe to assume there aren't duplicates in PCI in one area though so maybe that is a quicker way to find your tower?
@@NaterTater Right, I was going on the assumption that the PCI numbers were not duplicated within, say a county or other region. Most recently have been using the method that you described to ID the towers. Thanks again!
Hi ! OK so my question/ help I need Is a little crazy sounding to start with because of the circumstances of it all , I have the home internet but it's technically not available at my rural address where I moved so one of the techs had me use my grandma address in town where it is avaliable and told me bring it home hook it in that should still work because of how it goes off the towers , well I'm a gamer , it's my only hobby really anymore being disabled , call of duty on Playstation 4 , well my signal is trash and if anyone is connected other then me I can't even game at all for the lag can't can't make it thru a window throws me back out haha, and even if I'm only one on the network it still does pretty bad I've never got to three bars singal lucky to get to 2 and it's only once or twice been over 10mbps normally around 2-6mbps and down to nothing but kbps if anyone else is on my wifi at all , I know it's a long shot but do y9u have any advice or tips on making this work better for me ? I don't know what to do all that is available for my address is satellite internet like viasat and I'm hearing that it's darn near impossible to game online multi-player fps games like call of duty with their service.thoughts ?
Thanks
Crystal
Aka
Luna
First, you should verify what type of signal/coverage you have at your house. To get better signal try moving the gateway to different spots in your house. Also try an external antenna: ruclips.net/video/IEvWOywIh1Q/видео.html
Apparently, T-Mobile isn't good for my needs. I just got it set up today and have placed it in the areas closest to my tower which is only around 2 miles away and only get two bars...weak signal. I do have a slight better speed than what I have with Comcast so not sure what I'm going to do at this point. Very disappointed as I thought I would have at least 4/5 bars on the signal. I have two weeks to try it out but for the past 6 hours the speed has just gotten slightly better. I hit 175 mbps but it's currently 11pm at night.
Bars don't matter that much, you certainly don't need 4/5 bars to have great service. Additionally the bars on the screen is just the 4G primary signal, you likely are also getting a 5G signal. My 5G signal is better than my 4G signal.
hello I have the antenna to increase the signal can you help me with the installation
yes, i have many tutorials on it Waveform Cellular Antennas for T-Mobile and Verizon Home Internet: ruclips.net/p/PL8d9FovK2dNS1HuMabIm8hspYa7nlXpPP
Question for you all if I may: On the trash can, is the primary connection always 4G, and the secondary always 5G?
Yes if its non standalone (nsa) 5G. 5Gsa can be primary.
@@NaterTater Gotcha. Thank you!
Is there any way to add a antenna to the new TM gateway to help get signal?
Yes if you're will to disassemble some.
I just got this and ran a speed test the highest I could get was 50mbps for download and 40 for upload. And that’s only 12am and I called the customer service and basically told me the cellular towers are undergoing “enhancement”, is there such thing as enhancement? Or am I just being BS so I wouldn’t return and refund it because the only consistent thing i’ve been getting morning till noon is 1.15 mbps to 10 for download and 20 for upload.
They are upgrading much of their network. If you need it now and its not up to snuff may be best to wait a bit (2022).
The very bad thing with wireless is nobody is the same speed. Yet they are all the same price. So and so with 2 bars is not the same as 4 bars. I commend Tmobile for rocking the boat though. It takes this to keep the others in line. Bad thing for me is that I can't get service from them because my certified approved 911 address is not in their system while my neighbors is. Not cool.
Also is it such a bad thing to know your towers in your area on a map? I have looked and nothing was clear not even opensignal.
Got this a week ago. It was super fast at first. I was downloading at about 230mps. This last weekend it dropped to 15mps. With 5G showing as N/A. Any idea what’s going on?
I'd bet tower maintenance, same thing happened to me. Took 2 wks I think. You can message T-mobile on FB/IG and ask. Or call them.
@@NaterTater That happened to me as well. I called them and they said my unit had switched to a 4G tower. They switched it back to a 5G tower and the speed went back up to 410 mbps.
I have the old white gateway. It worked great for about 6 months and then all of a sudden it stopped. They sent me a new gateway today (another white one) and I’m having the same issue. It says I have very good signal but none of my devices will connect to WiFi. When I connect my phone for instance it will not allow me to open a browser page in safari
Does the internet work if you plug in via ethernet to the gateway?
@@NaterTater have not given that a shot yet
I had T-mobile 5G for a few months and it was working great. Just prior to 10/21/21 I had gotten close to 100mbps. Then on 10/21/21 something happened. Long story short T-mobile has no clue. I think it is a tower issue. Anyway, I have a LPDA directional antenna TD18002500LC-8.5 Freq 800-2500MHz Gain 8.5dBi. It has one N Female connection. So can I use it with the 5G Gateway? If so, I guess I would have to have a Y connector. Do you have an idea what I need?
You would need another LPDA to make a pair and two connectors. Needs to be a MIMO setup. But you need to check which freq band you get to make sure your antenna will work.
Any ideas for FAXING?
My sinr is 33 on the 5G side on my Nokia gateway
Nice video....can you make 5G the primary signal? looks like the default primary is 4G....thanks!
This gateway uses 5G NSA so no, 4g is always primary. Tmobile is just now rolling out dual 5G CA but i dont think this gateway supports that.
@@NaterTater thanks...I activated mine gateway yesterday and it was super fast at 210MB but it is super slow today at 15MB....tower was in same location but big difference in speed....is it congestion or low priority data? any idea?
@@NoName-yz8xr too much to type, see my other vids
So do you have to have acell mapper account ? Once you locate a closer tower do you try and change to that one for better service ?
No account needed. You cant force a specific tower/band on this gateway but you can move it around/aim it/etc to help.
Thanks man
Hey nate do you know why my t mobile can’t handle my sono’s devices I have gone through 3 towers now! It seems it can’t handle more than 10 devices!
If you've gone thru 3 gateways then I doubt all of them are defective. Either you dont have good service, things aren't configured correctly or something else. Did you try changing the wifi channel bandwidth?