Effects of T-Mobile Cell Data on Distance From Cell Tower

[alarmguy]

This can be for any cell provider and why it's impossible to compare experiences around the country. Its location, location, location.
Also why some will trash cell based home internet service and others will praise it. The same example goes for cell service.
I live in a large community, miles of roads, some people have great experiences with T-Mobile Home internet and love it.
For our house, we are to far from the tower, in fact T-Mobile says its not available for us. I am quite happy with our 300/300 fiber service, way more speed than I can use.

Anyway, for this post, I ran speed tests using my iPhone 13 while approx. 1/4 or 1/8 th mile away from the cell tower.
Here are the results. First one was inside my truck, others I stood outside but would expect variations, not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Ok, so the above was 1/8 to 1/4 miles from the tower.
I drove back to my house an additional 2 and 1/4 miles so safe to say 2 and 1/2 miles from the tower I saw massive drop in speed.
I realized as I posted this that my home wifi was showing as well as the cell signal. I was on the cell but repeated the test turning off my phone Wi-Fi to eliminate any confusion (second photo)

First two photos are outside my house 2.5 miles from the tower, last photo is inside the house.
Anyway this clearly shows how radically different a 5g cell signal can be just a mile or two away from the tower and would explain why some people are so happy and others not at all happy.

Also

 

[eljefino]

A lot of it is antenna placement-- a nice directional antenna on your roof connected to your router or a booster is a world of difference. I wouldn't boost at 30mbps though, that, to me, is still "good", LOL.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

@ Alarmguy - The are other possible RF and network phenomenon that can occur that your test may not take into account.

1. Network load balancing - when the cell site or 5G node reaches capacity it will automatically attenuate the signal to force exisitng subscribers to migrate to nearby cell sites and nodes that may have capacity. This "roaming affect" it supposed to happen automatically and in theory without causing connections to drop but we all know the rest of the story on that.

2. All RF is subject to reflection and cancellation affects due to signal blockage, absorption, and reception differences by devices attached. This means that on any given day, time you could be in the same physical location and receive different signal db strength measurements which affect coverage and attenuation of signal reception ....i.e. "your results may vary".

Bottomline; if the average Joe Public realized what it took to connect a cell device to the network and make it work consistently, they would be amazed that it works as well and reliably as it does.

 

[alarmguy]

@ Alarmguy - The are other possible RF and network phenomenon that can occur that your test may not take into account.

1. Network load balancing - when the cell site or 5G node reaches capacity it will automatically attenuate the signal to force exisitng subscribers to migrate to nearby cell sites and nodes that may have capacity. This "roaming affect" it supposed to happen automatically and in theory without causing connections to drop but we all know the rest of the story on that.

2. All RF is subject to reflection and cancellation affects due to signal blockage, absorption, and reception differences by devices attached. This means that on any given day, time you could be in the same physical location and receive different signal db strength measurements which affect coverage and attenuation of signal reception ....i.e. "your results may vary".

Bottomline; if the average Joe Public realized what it took to connect a cell device to the network and make it work consistently, they would be amazed that it works as well and reliably as it does.

Yeah, I agree but as far as these results they are repeatable any time of day. I left the time stamp showing one test 30mbps only 9 minutes later 2.5 miles away. Im not disagreeing, in fact agree with most everything. It clearly shows as distance increases from view of the tower to two miles away how bad things can get for a variety of reasons and why people have issues with Home Cell Internet service and others very happy.

I also had the same exact experience in our South Carolina home a while back. Tried T-Mobile Home Internet and had to return it. Even had engineers contact me to position the unit in the corner of my house the tower faced. After that, T-Mobile pulled our community from the availability list, two years later got contacted again that it is now available in my email but we moved.

That tower in South Carolina was 3miles away, same results give or take... House was getting on and off 12 to 50 Mbps and sometimes, most times unusable but when I drove to the tower again 1/4 to 1/8 mile way I pulled 770 Mbps.

I do believe some day (maybe) it will be available everywhere as local small antennas are placed within communities. Which will also offer all other devices 5g services for a whole host of things that I am not aware of. *LOL* (and haven't bothered to read up on)

 

[haggler]

According to your phone, when you're close to your tower its connecting to ultra wideband frequency which, depending on your area, is a different higher frequency band which may not penetrate into your home given the distance from the tower. Also, I don't have iphone but there is a 5g setting in the phone that is used to optimize the battery life. So if your ultra wideband signal is very low, it might be switching to a different lower speed band. Using a stationary home 5g internet router like one with tmobile home internet might allow you to place the antenna in a strategic location for better speeds. T-mobile has ultra wide band here but they wont sell home internet due to capacity and utilization is high due to population density.
Point is the speeds you show are fine on your phone, but for home internet there are a lot of variables. If 5G home internet was your only option, you could probably pull decent speeds with a nice antenna setup.

 

[loneryder]

Yes your home is not close enough to get the UWB signal which is the fastest 5g. Faster but weaker. So you are going to the mid band 5g which is slower but stronger signal. Funny you bring this up. I switched to Mint mobile because TMobile was the first to have 5g out here in WV. I think you might have been the one who told me about it. For the last 2 weeks my phone calls go in and out. I've called them numerous times and they reset my phone to another tower(there isn't any), have me reset my network etc. Nothing has worked. It got so bad I couldn't call them. I'm about a mile from the only tower as the crow flies but it's over several hills. I usually have 2-3 bars of signal of LTE or 5g midband when it happens. Leaves haven't arrived yet so that can't be it. My worse problems occur when it's really windy. One day it was 50-60 mph gusts. Does wind affect cell signal?? I called yester to cancel and get my pin to transfer and they said they were fixing it so I could use my last prepaid month. Well it's working so far.
Every company I look at has the same coverage map. Maybe because they are all on the same tower??

 

[nate379]

30 is super fast still.
I get .57-1 most days.

 

[alarmguy]

30 is super fast still.
I get .57-1 most days.

According to your phone, when you're close to your tower its connecting to ultra wideband frequency which, depending on your area, is a different higher frequency band which may not penetrate into your home given the distance from the tower. Also, I don't have iphone but there is a 5g setting in the phone that is used to optimize the battery life. So if your ultra wideband signal is very low, it might be switching to a different lower speed band. Using a stationary home 5g internet router like one with tmobile home internet might allow you to place the antenna in a strategic location for better speeds. T-mobile has ultra wide band here but they wont sell home internet due to capacity and utilization is high due to population density.
Point is the speeds you show are fine on your phone, but for home internet there are a lot of variables. If 5G home internet was your only option, you could probably pull decent speeds with a nice antenna setup.

Some good points, but a lot of my post was based on previous experience with T-Mobile home Internet, where I could measure the same speeds with my phone as I posted, but home Internet was horrific.
Evenings it would just about stall out

 

[andrew_j]

The service can be good but latency so so especially larger video calls . Many work from home jobs don’t allow use of cellular ISP.

 

[PandaBear]

Cell phone can be using different band depending on the location you are at.

Your 3 miles away location is likely a lower frequency band that's slower but travel further penetrate walls better. It would be a waste to use it near the tower when ultra wide (higher frequency) band is readily available.

Very often multiple carriers use the same location even if they don't get the same tower, because they likely researched where is a good location to put the towers and the willing landlords would might as well rent to everyone.

Also with frequency bands changing so often, what didn't work yesterday may work tomorrow, and what works today may not work tomorrow.

 

[Rogueman2016s]

LTE iPhone XR

 

[fdcg27]

We get good speed with our TMobile 5G router.
Obviously YMMV.

 

[haggler]

Some good points, but a lot of my post was based on previous experience with T-Mobile home Internet, where I could measure the same speeds with my phone as I posted, but home Internet was horrific.
Evenings it would just about stall out

All things equal if you're getting slow speeds its because home internet users are deprioritized below everyone else.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Yeah, I agree but as far as these results they are repeatable any time of day. I left the time stamp showing one test 30mbps only 9 minutes later 2.5 miles away. Im not disagreeing, in fact agree with most everything. It clearly shows as distance increases from view of the tower to two miles away how bad things can get for a variety of reasons and why people have issues with Home Cell Internet service and others very happy.

I also had the same exact experience in our South Carolina home a while back. Tried T-Mobile Home Internet and had to return it. Even had engineers contact me to position the unit in the corner of my house the tower faced. After that, T-Mobile pulled our community from the availability list, two years later got contacted again that it is now available in my email but we moved.

That tower in South Carolina was 3miles away, same results give or take... House was getting on and off 12 to 50 Mbps and sometimes, most times unusable but when I drove to the tower again 1/4 to 1/8 mile way I pulled 770 Mbps.

I do believe some day (maybe) it will be available everywhere as local small antennas are placed within communities. Which will also offer all other devices 5g services for a whole host of things that I am not aware of. *LOL* (and haven't bothered to read up on)

I don’t know if RF follows the same examples of light, sound, and radiation, but if it does, doubling the distance results in 1/4 the initial intensity in the three examples I gave. Alternately, halving the distance results in a 4x increase in intensity.

Your results make sense to me, especially because of the extremely short wavelength of 5G.

 

[nate379]

I have ATT&T home cell internet at home. It's worked plenty fine. Had DSL before, it was slower and over 2x the price ($110).

Watch Netflix maybe 2-3 times a month, YouTube here and there, email, plus a couple security cameras and a thermostat.

 

[alarmguy]

I have ATT&T home cell internet at home. It's worked plenty fine. Had DSL before, it was slower and over 2x the price ($110).

Watch Netflix maybe 2-3 times a month, YouTube here and there, email, plus a couple security cameras and a thermostat.

Yup. location, location, location. Just over a mile+ away in my community homeowners happy with T-Mobile home internet.
The want for me has change considerably in our new home.
Last home, Spectrum, 200/12 Mbps service $75 or $79

This home local fiber service 300/300 $57 actual payment, even though the other part of our community T-Mobile home internet is available it is not available at our end. Kind of emphasizes the distance thing I mentioned in the OP. But at this price of $57 I wouldnt switch anyway. We stream "Netflix" and a host of other services every night and my wife streams most of the day in her home office.

 

[alarmguy]

LTE iPhone XR

View attachment 210494

That is not good but most likely not native it on a phone anyway. It would be unusable for home Internet and streaming tv

 

[alarmguy]

According to your phone, when you're close to your tower its connecting to ultra wideband frequency which, depending on your area, is a different higher frequency band which may not penetrate into your home given the distance from the tower.

Yes, you are correct, the further from the tower the ultra switches to standard. Not only penetrate the home but everything else in its path. I previously posted but have not followed up in a year or more that one day we may see small pointed antennas throughout communities and along roadways to carry that signal for a host of services including automobiles.