Preliminary TMobile Home Internet testing

I've been chasing T-Mobile's signal at my location for the last 15 years. They actually just finally co-located on the main tower in town so now I have a decent signal. Try going to Cellmapper and it will give you good information on what towers are near you provided they have been mapped. That being said, I used their home internet for a few years at another location with decent results. I didn't have an unlimited plan or anything but the router I ended up using was an expensive Huawei unit which I needed for band 12 access at the time, probably 6-7 years ago or so. I still have the equipment but got rid of the service because the plan options were not unlimited and did not fit my budget. I initially used a hotspot which I disliked but it worked well enough for monitoring the thermostat I have.

I also have quite a bit of experience chasing Clear internet's Wimax signal which became the band 41 that you want to be locked onto. The router I had at the time had an external antenna port. I ended up purchasing a yagi style antenna for it. 2500mhz band is inherently difficult at further distances. I haven't been following T-mobile's home internet equipment but I would see if they have a router with an external antenna port and then point an antenna at the tower you want.

Before I had service in my area I purchased a Wilson cell signal booster which I still have. I was able to have usable data inside my house using it. The tower was far away and had band 12. Usually couldn't get a signal lock in my driveway with my cellphone but with the booster on my rooftop I was able to get probably 2 bars inside my house.
 
Rrob, their official gateways don't have external antenna ports. But you can open them up and add pigtails to connect to an antenna. A 4x4 MiMo antenna kit runs around $400 PLUS the cost for 4 surge protectors if you do it 'right'. ($75x 4) Maybe something cheaper if bought from China. IDK. So far I am happy running it as is. I WILL be adding a fan to the gateway though. It gets pretty warm without one.

Running as is: A lower ping would be nice... especially for a gamer. My Reference Signal Received Power always shows poor on both LTE and 5G. The best compromise SNR I get is approx 10 on LTE, 20 on 5G. If I get the LTE higher, the 5G suffers, and conversely. Getting Band 66 on LTE, Band 41 on 5G. A slight turn of the gateway switches it over to Band 71... and much slower speeds. (but still incredibly faster than my ISP previously!)

My download typically ranges from 180Mbps - 260Mbps. With extremes of 120Mbps and 320Mbps. I once only had about 80Mbps but it was due to a bad/distant server.

Here's a Ookla test I just ran at 10:30pm:

ScreenshOokla_Test.webp

Sure beats the 10Mbps download that I had before. And $30 cheaper. :bigclap:
 
DOWNLOAD Mbps
178.27
UPLOAD Mbps
81.27

It does the the job if anyone cares. :moduser:
 
More my 2 cents and the conglomerates.....

I have Tmobile cell phone service at my location, I get 500+ consistant downloads and 50+ uploads using speedtest by Ookla. With that in mind, I tried their home internet service earlier this year to see if the speeds would duplicate.

After setting up the gateway, I used speedtest by Ookla on my pc and got 100+ downloads and 15+ uploads during the day. In the evening my downloads dropped to 40+, uploads dropped a few points. Meanwhile, my cell phone was still in the 500+ and 50+ category during the ongoing speedtest of the pc.

I called tech support and explained the situation and he thought it might be a problem with the cell tower (too much traffic). He switched me to another tower and suggested I use it for a while.

No improvements, so I cancelled the service even though the price was a great attraction. Tech support not at all. Billing dept., even worse (many billing cycles later, still sorting out their BS). Cox is still my blackmailer provider for the last 15 years.

On a side note, I was on the nextdoor forum for my location and many folks reported roughly the same speeds and experience with Tmobile.

Still, for those that have no other options, Tmobile home is a good start as well as Verizon home (no 5g?).
 
My speed test here run between 50 and 100 Mbit/s down and 15 to 30 up. My devices are old not wifi 6 so that may be reason but happy with the service. No cable internet in my part of the swap.
 
DOWNLOAD Mbps
178.27
UPLOAD Mbps
81.27

It does the the job if anyone cares. :moduser:

Wow, Viper. Good download, especially good upload!

I found that if I located my gateway in a less than optimum position I would switch from N41 to N71. This would significantly drop the download speeds and signal strength... but raise the upload speed greatly. I saw a Nater Tater video that talked about how the slower N71 is better for uploads.

I prefer the best download speed so I want N41. I rarely need much uploading. But for someone who does a lot of uploading, hitting the N71 might be desirable.

Would be cool if there was a band control setting on the gateway. But I have read that will probably never happen.
 
Last edited:
More my 2 cents and the conglomerates.....

... I called tech support and explained the situation and he thought it might be a problem with the cell tower (too much traffic). He switched me to another tower and suggested I use it for a while...

I'm curious how the tech 'switched' you to another tower. (maybe deny device connection like you can do in a home router) Or do you mean you justrelocated the gateway to where it would switch on it's own?

Learning a lot on this thread folks. Keep it coming.
 
"I'm curious how the tech 'switched' you to another tower. (maybe deny device connection like you can do in a home router) Or do you mean you justrelocated the gateway to where it would switch on it's own?"

Don't know how or if he actually did it. But, communicating and understanding the individual was rather difficult, plus there was the dreaded "echo" effect during the conversation. I just didn't have the patience to continue after he hung up on me.
 
Here's a radio path study from an online site. Tower height calculated at a conservative 30 meters. (Should be higher) This tower is slightly over the far side of a ridge crest.
1) I believe MY tower is an unlisted tower slightly THIS side of the ridge crest as my red arrow shows, which would be better. I can't say for sure because MY tower is a newly converted Sprint tower and the CGI # doesn't match any info I can find.
2) It is hard to see in the pic, but there is a ridge just in front of me as the blue arrow shows. This ridge has trees that block some/all line of sight. A second ridge may as well. Raising my antenna 10 or 10 ft could make a big difference if ever needed.

Pretty cool that this info is available on line.

radio-path-study.webp
 
Try looking at Cellmapper. The converted Sprint towers will show up under a different number but Cellmapper has all that info. I'll dig out my Yagi at some point and post a picture. But a specialized antenna for that band would be your best bet. Do they allow you to bring your own device for the service?

I have had very good luck with passive antennas for my cell phone cradles. If you don't have an external option something like that may work. They hook straight up to the antenna of your choice.
 
T-Mobile purchased Sprint. Any tower that belonged to Sprint would most likely belong to T-Mobile now. You can worry or wonder where the signal for the gateway is coming from only if you have speed or connection issues. 600 MHz cell signals travel a lot further which means you may be able to get service from more than one tower if needed.

T-Mobile gateways are currently provided at no cost, but they expect you to return the gateway undamaged when you terminate service. It is not really possible to bring your own device, but you can purchase one of the proper gateways from the Internet and use it. I have purchased and used two gateways that were purchased for around 50 dollars a piece. One of these gateways was broken during antenna modifications. The other used gateway has been modified and is still working.

T-Mobile 5G gateways are MIMO devices which means Multiple Input Multiple Output. MIMO external antennas for the gateway will need to be purchased in groups of two or four. I use four external antennas which is not cheap if decent parts are used. The MIMO antennas should be on different polarities or installed at opposite 45 degree angles which gives 90 degrees of polarity separation. One single yagi antenna connected to the MIMO gateway won't do any good.
 
Try looking at Cellmapper. The converted Sprint towers will show up under a different number but Cellmapper has all that info. I'll dig out my Yagi at some point and post a picture. But a specialized antenna for that band would be your best bet. Do they allow you to bring your own device for the service?

I have had very good luck with passive antennas for my cell phone cradles. If you don't have an external option something like that may work. They hook straight up to the antenna of your choice.

CellMapper didn't show this tower either. I did find it listed as Sprint on one website, forget which. It shows on google earth. And I was up there bird watching a few years back and walked right by it. Maybe it was shut down and since it just recently went back online, the info isn't available yet.

According to cell maps found on-line, the other tower just over the ridge is aimed to cover highway 77. (Away from me)

I don't know if they allow you to bring your own device. But I went to my local TMobile store yesterday and asked if I could buy a spare gateway for a backup. My local store doesn't sell them, doesn't even stock them. They order them on-line for each new account. Told me I could talk to TMobile support if mine went bad and they would ship me another one. Like I want to do without internet for 3 or 4 days! So I plan to get one from ebay or amazon when possible.

Unnecessary purchases on hold right now due to car trouble. Radiator blew last week... $350. Blew radiator hose last night... $100 wrecker bill, waiting on hose repair estimate. Also suspected blown head gasket. So if a bottle of gasket repair doesn't work... the ol' gal is off to the salvage yard.

2005 Toyota Matrix awd. I hate to see her go. But: Over 300,000 miles. A rebuilt trans that's been acting up the last 2 years. A warped and cracked exhaust manifold, etc etc :deadhorse:
 
eb would 2 yagis optimized for band 41 work setup the way you describe? I just got 5g in my location a couple months ago therefore I have not tested any of it. My limited 5g experience otherwise is when I am walking around Orlando on vacation or on my phone at work.

armadillo I have been mapping with Cellmapper for the last several years. If you are bored and don't mind running the app you could probably better map the tower you are getting service from. Most of the combined Sprint/T-Mobile towers either show up under 311 490, 310 260 T-Mobile , or 310 120 for Sprint. A lot of band 41 towers were still showing up under Clearwire's 311940. The app will tell you usually which one it is.
 
eb would 2 yagis optimized for band 41 work setup the way you describe? I just got 5g in my location a couple months ago therefore I have not tested any of it. My limited 5g experience otherwise is when I am walking around Orlando on vacation or on my phone at work.
.
The gateway will automatically select the band it needs. It probably would not be a good idea to use antennas that are cut for a certain band.
 
When I was avidly checking download speeds several years ago with T-Mobile and Sprint I was getting upwards of 100mbps with 4GLTE. I had never come across towers that were crowded until I was in Orlando at the outlets near Disney. There, I could not even do basic google searches for directions, etc. One trick I used in that situation was to switch to regular 3g/4g where I had usable data again. Sprint had consistently better data access then. Fast forward to present day with 5g, the crowding is almost as bad in Orlando and it is difficult to do basic searches. I find myself using Wifi most of the time. Now the main difference is trying to switch to LTE or 4g there is basically no usable data. I finally upgraded my phones to use 5g and overall the experience has gotten slightly worse in central areas of Disney. I certainly will be testing later this month on vacation.
 
Rrob, our cell phones are on USCellular. So the app pulls up the wrong carrier info.

There are some phones that will allow you to view which band and connect to it. My Asus does it and many Samsung phones have special options for this kind of info. For instance for Asus zenfone: settings, internet, sim, turn off automatically select network, now sitting at home in the woods I have network options for US Cellular, At&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

I was chasing band 26 from Sprint for a couple of years and I used this method to stay locked onto a band I was tracking.
 
Back
Top