[TriLUG] Wanted to share my experience with TMobile 5G Home Internet

Thu Oct 5 06:56:31 EDT 2023

The same happens for me, Mauricio. There are no towers shown on the
coverage map, even when zoomed all the way in.

But when I picked up my T-Mobile FAST 5688W Gateway
<https://manuals.plus/t-mobile/fast-5688w-5g-gateway-manual#setting_up_the_t-mobile_5g_gateway>
this afternoon, the tower locations were shown on the coverage map screen
which the salesman had open on his tablet. I asked him why he could see
them, but when I'd looked for them at home I couldn't see them. He said
that he thought it was because he was logged into the site with a company
ID, and the public view has less information.

It looked to me like the towers on his screen were consistent with what
CellMapper showed
<https://community.t-mobile.com/troubleshooting-38/finding-tmobile-cell-tower-locations-42433>
.

I connected up the gateway without much difficulty, and I was able to
access the Internet using my computer and phone. SpeedTest.net shows
somewhat variable speeds, but generally faster than my "60 mbps" Spectrum.
Unlike fiber, it's not symmetrical, though.

I'm very annoyed with the gateway's firmware. Although there's an admin
password shown on a sticker on the device, neither the UI (at the admin IP
address, 192.168.22.1), nor the T-Mobile app, provide any way to get admin
access. There's no login prompt at http://192.168.22.1/, and the phone app
seems to have no means for accessing configuration settings, like port
forwarding or pass-through to another router.

The gateway also has a USB-C port for connecting an external HDD or flash
drive, probably to make it usable as a poor man's NAS... but there's no way
to configure or use it.

Brian mentioned a 3rd Party app
<https://tmo.report/2023/05/new-app-gives-easy-access-to-t-mobile-home-internet-gateway-stats/>
which might solve these problems. I've not tried it yet. If it doesn't
solve the problems then I'll call T-Mobile support during business hours.
If I can't find a solution then I'll have to return the gateway and cancel
my service, because I run a web server in my home.

It appears that the gateway probably originally had reasonable
configurability, but T-Mobile customized the firmware and deleted the good
stuff. My guess is that doing that sort of crap probably simplifies their
customer support scripts, so that the people who "support" their customers
don't need much training. From my point of view, the only good thing about
it is that it might mean the Chinese manufacturer couldn't have slipped in
any spyware.

Dave

On Wed, Oct 4, 2023 at 3:31 PM Mauricio Tavares via TriLUG <
trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> I have hit zoom until it can zoom no more and see not a single tower
>
> On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 3:53 PM brian mullan via TriLUG
> <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> >
> > Yeah, to see the Towers I had to click the + button to scope deeper into
> > that Map.   Keep
> > clicking the + button until they show up.
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 3:34 PM David Burton <ncdave4life at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 12:37 PM brian mullan <bmullan.mail at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> *#1*
> > >> Regarding Distance from a TMobile 5G tower.
> > >> My house is perhaps 3-4 miles away from the nearest TMO 5G Tower
> shown on
> > >> their coverage map.
> > >> You can look up TMobile's 5G Coverage Map: *
> https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/coverage-map
> > >> <https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/coverage-map>*
> > >> Just enter  your Zip code and the map will show all TMobile Towers
> > >> nearby  (5G Ultra, 5G extended range & 4G)
> > >>
> > >
> > > Thanks, Brian.
> > >
> > > When I do that it doesn't show me the tower locations. Here's a
> screenshot:
> > >
> > > <https://sealevel.info/TMO_coverage_map_2023-09-26.png>
> > >
> > >            *  (click image to enlarge)*
> > >
> > >
> > > Do I need to select an option of some sort, to get it to display the
> tower
> > > locations?
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 1:41 PM Peter Soper via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> I hope you have a better experience than I've had. With my setup after
> > >> roughly a year it is my opinion that Tmobile has no concept of QOS or
> the
> > >> word "availability". I've kept my pitiful DSL so I can fall back
> during
> > >> frequent outages. Vaguely 2-3 a month requiring fallback and a half
> dozen
> > >> outages lasting just a few minutes. Also, my service makes me appear
> to be
> > >> in Charlotte or Atlanta and that's a separate PITA.
> > >>
> > >
> > > Thanks for that info, Pete.
> > >
> > > Do you know how far you are from the nearest TMO antenna tower?
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > >
> > --
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