For the last five weeks my data speed has been horrible. No I’m not being throttled there’s no way I can reach my 5 GB max with these poor speeds. I can’t figure out what happened. (Before you think it… Yes I’m in a 4G coverage area.)
Local folklore is that there was a T-Mobile tower near my home that needed to come down due to a property dispute. I don’t know all the details. I think the man who owned the land wanted to develop it or sell it. Point is it needed to come down.
Problem is it’s been a month since the tower has been replaced by this new one. (I don’t really know if it’s new) My data speed is literally about 300 kbps max. But the average speed is more like 175 kbps. It feels like I should be hearing the familiar sound of a dial up modem and, “You’ve got mail,” when I check my Gmail.
So far I’ve called Customer care five times. All except for the second time T-Mobile Customer Care has been fantastic. They’ve treated me as a part of the solution and not the problem which I appreciate. There is a reason they are #1 for customer support. But I’m not seeing any results. I want results, not just well mannered customer service. Also when I’ve asked about the tower relocation story they don’t have any information about it. To be honest I don’t expect a call center rep to have information like that but the local engineers should know what happened and at least be able to verify or negate the story. I have yet to hear any official word on the validity of the story. Frankly I don’t care what happened. I just want it fixed!
Right now I’m trying to download the Juggernaut v2.0 ROM for my Galaxy S II and Chrome (tethered via usb) is telling me it’s going to take seven hours to download the 259 MB ROM. I’m so depressed about the whole thing. I was really hoping that this ultra amazing 4G phone was going to blow my mind. But because of this tower issue it’s been quite a yawn!
Now if I travel to the more affluent parts of town (Overland Park, KS; I live in Grandview MO a suburb of Kansas City) the data speeds are pretty good. I think my fastest was somewhere in the 13 mbps range (in my car at a red light). The SGSII is supposed to be able to pull a theoretical 42 mbps but of course real world numbers almost never reach the theoretical numbers. I would hate to think that T-Mobile shows favoritism toward more affluent areas. But I gotta say it’s starting to feel that way. South KC in general doesn’t have the greatest data speeds. The fastest I’ve pulled is 7 mbps near the highway. Nice, but not blazing.
So what are your data speeds like? Where do you live? Have you noticed similar trends in your city? Leave your comments and let us know.
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Congrats on the write ups!
9-21 Mbps in SF, using testmy.net to check
Hey Tom,
You may have better luck getting results by complaining to your local store.
I my area we recently had a tower issue after a particularly bad thunderstorm that RF & Engineering thought they fixed, but weeks later we kept getting customer complaints and after a more in depth investigation they found the issue.
In an email to our store one of the engineers actually stated “Look – I’ll take customer complaints over statistical ‘drive by data’ any day! They know when somethings is wrong.”
My recommendation is to visit your local store and see if they are even aware that there’s a problem.
As far as 42Mbps? It’s only available in certain markets right now and it’s quickly growing.
It’s not just your neck of the woods man. Ever since KC lit up hspa+ I have gotten crazy fast speeds at my apartments (overland park) like between 5-9mbps and those are on the sensation and mytouch 4g phones so they capped at 14.4 mbps. Well when I got the galaxy s2 on launch day it was all great for the first week or so getting average speeds of about 10mbps and max of about 14. Just recently though something happened and I have called and called and chatted online and even tweeted tmobile a screenshot of my before and after speeds since I cant even get half a meg speed now. Seriously the upload fails 8/10 times and the download is only about .3-.7 but nowhere near what it was. Of course customer service and tech support all say the same thing that speed varies due to traffic and there are no issues with my service that’s just how it is in my area. That wouldn’t even be acceptable if I had never been getting all those great speeds for months and months. I am so sick of it that I am switching to verizon for LTE, it lights up tomorrow in KC.
http://testmy.net/quickstats/senkulpa
Slow speed = underground, on the subway
You should try Sprint…..I will race you on the slow test. Mine will win
Thanks Ben I’ll try that. I just can’t believe it’s been this bad for so long! They might as well just say that I’m in an EDGE coverage area.
I’ve had the exact problem as the poster just different locations and what I’ve come to find out is the company is stalling for the most part until they see what happenes with AT&T so they won’t have to deal out more money and I’ve had an issue longer and its even worst at my house.
I don’t have 4G in my town but went from 1.4mbps down 500kbps up to 86kbps down and 900kbps to 1100kbps up roughly. Data speeds are so bad I have to be on wifi all the time and I only used 18MB of my 5GB plan last night on my Nexus S
I’m in Houston and getting a consistent good speed of anywhere from 3.9mbps to 5mbps since my phone maxes out at 7.2mbps and upload is always around 1.4mps but usually in the 2mbps upload range
I’ve been getting some weird service as well as of late. My phone ,Moto Defy,has just flat been dropping. When,for example on WiFi calling, the phone will say “No Service”,? but calls still go thru n when I check in the settings, it says “connected”but that little blue bubble in notification bar is gone & the bars have a red circle with a bar thru it, a min. later its back up n goin? I’m about 45 min. directly. south of Nashville.
Honestly, when i upgraded from dial up 56k to a cable modem and was downloading mp3′s on Napster at 40kbps like 10yrs ago it was fast… I honestly don’t see how 7Mbps is “alright” i mean i hey 6mbps in buffalo NY and I’m completely satisfied… I Don’t know how fast is fat enough where it is instant.. Well people not be satisfied until we reach 1TBps i mean really… i think 2mbps is a really good speed, but i guess i can appreciate it because i remember 3
40kbps on roadrunner and adelphia power link cable modem..
I stay in Houston and I am averaging about 5-14mbps in download and 1-2mbps in upload on Tmobile HSPA+ network
I’m in Dallas, TX where we’re supposed to have full 4G coverage. This isn’t remotely true. Only during off-peak hours do you see speeds higher than 7mbps. Most often, you get between 3mbps and 5mbps. I think their coverage and increased speed boasts are no more than that- boasts. I moved from the N1 to the MT4G and am now on the S4G, i’m not seeing any great leaps in speed. Eventually I’ll end up with a HSPA+42 phone just because the hardware gets better and better. I don’t expect to see any major speed improvement there though…
idk about everyone else but i live in NYC and i always get 20 – 32mpbs…. i am very satisfied with these speeds
20-32mbps??? Where are you in NYC. Sometimes I can get around 3-5mbps around the upper west side but lately its slow around 1-2mbs or less. I also try around downtown Manhattan and still the same. I’m using an htc sensation btw.
Ive been getting on average about 3-4 dl in south Florida. Vibrant 3g. I can Max out my vibrant at 6.8dl on Friday mornings. No issues here.
Couldn’t disagree more, I get 9 to 12mbps regularly. I love my T-Mobile speeds, very satisfied.
“Your speeds may vary” is a song nobody likes to hear. If you were getting 4G speeds and they suddenly stop there is an issue that needs looking into. Sunday I was driving near my apartment and I had an edge only icon on my phone, I asked the wife to check her phone and sure enough edge only on her phone too.
I’m fortunate enough to work for T-Mobile’s engineering department, so all I had to do was call into the NOC with a cell id and some information and a trouble ticket was opened, and the problem was fixed.
What can you do? Certainly calling CS is a good start, but sometimes they don’t have visibility to issue in your specific area, so they often can’t solve your problem. (I hate the canned response of have you: “power cycled, battery pull, sim pull…etc)
A trouble ticket can be opened by CS that does get to the engineering team and those do get worked on. How do you get that to happen? a) Sugar goes a long way. Be nice. b) Arm yourself with info. Is it only on your phone, or do other phones have the same issue? Is it only in one location, specific locations or everywhere? Have the cross streets or address available because they will ask. Other specific information will help. Time of day, how fast was it before/after, etc.
The Engineering team has access to tons of data. The network is monitored real-time 24/7. Sudden changes in traffic, voice or data gets flagged and tickets are automatically generated for many of these.
T-Mobile like other carriers doesn’t want to use customers as their primary network fault monitoring system, but sometimes it is the only way a trouble gets fixed, so call in, and let T-Mobile fix it for you.
Disclaimer: I work for T-Mobile. My comments and views are my own and not those of T-Mobile.
T-Mobile is pissing me off, how the hell can i have full service one second then the damn signal bar drops off for a few seconds with no service the next? Why am i on my phone with 4G, then it drops to 3G, then back up then back down to EDGE, or cut off all the way? How come i can sit on 4G and not even move at all, T-Mobile is pissing me off, and they have me, im stuck, with my plan, i cant go anywhere cuz nobody else can beat it.
Update coming. Seems there was a bug…
i live near 75th and I35 in overland park, i work near 87th and quivira. data speeds are horrible in this area. most of the time i can’t even connect. the speed test app fails. it says “network connection issues”.
i’ve been going back and forth with t-mobile for months. its frustrating before they’ll even talk to me they make me go thru the trouble shooting process: pull the battery and sim card and wait 5 minutes. then clear browser cache. what does my browser cache have to do with pandora, facebook, speedtest.net app, my account app? its not just the browser, nothing works. they keep saying “we’ll send an engineer out to look at the network”. then 3 days later i get an email saying they checked the network and its fine.
parts of overland park are better than others. raytown has really fast data. leawood, blue springs, and independence, not so much.