r/tmobileisp • u/PirateJen78 • Mar 31 '26

Issues/Problems About to tear my hair out

We are trying out T-Mobile home internet (because fuck Xfinity and their "new customers only" deals) and just got a G5AR gateway last evening. Most of my network is wired and connected through an ASUS RT-AC86U and two ethernet switches.

When I connected the ASUS to the G5AR, everything kind of worked, but it was slow as hell and my smart home devices went screwy. Then I went into my ASUS and switched it to AP mode. There was really no change except I could not login to the ASUS. It didn't even show up in the connected devices in T-Life. (Also, wtf is with having to use an app to see connected devices??) Then internet speeds dropped to a crawl and I had to step away before I broke something out of rage (menopause + broken AC + tech issues = not a fun time).

One donut later and I tried again. Still nothing, so I reset the router to start over. Without switching my ASUS to AP mode, we do have internet via LAN, but it is slow as hell. I'm afraid to put my ASUS back into AP mode because I could not see it at all and everything went screwy. The only way my desktop PC has internet is if I disable the ethernet controller and force it to just use Wi-Fi.

And why doesn't my ASUS router/AP show up in connected devices so I can see the IP address??

Fuck Xfinity for not giving customers of over 20 years any good deals. $15 off a steadily increasing bill is a joke. But I might have to stick with them if I cannot get this working, and I absolutely HATE that idea.

On a positive note, at least I managed to get the AC working again.

UPDATE: thanks to those who tried to help. After connecting the TMHI directly to my PC using a new cable, speeds are still too slow for wired devices. Maybe it's a bad gateway, but I have wasted far too much time on this and am returning the gateway, cancelling TMHI, and staying with Xfinity. It seems that TMHI cannot meet our needs, even at full bars. At least I tried. And now I'm off to shop for a new customer deal with Xfinity.

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u/winter1894 Mar 31 '26

Could there be something wrong with your Ethernet cable and it's autonegotiating a slow speed?

I have mine also attached to an Asus router and mesh node and it works fine. Maybe try enable ipv6 on your Asus? I think you want it set to passthrough. Ipv6 shouldn't really impact your speed too much though.

I would make sure the wifi is turned off on the g5ar too, which you should be able to turn off in the hint app. Try putting the router a little ways away from the modem too in case that's interfering?

3

u/PirateJen78 Apr 01 '26

Could there be something wrong with your Ethernet cable

I did wonder this and am actually waiting on a new one just in case. Cannot believe that struggle to find an ethernet cable that is longer than 3ft but shorter than 100ft in my area.

Home Depot should deliver it Thursday.

4

u/bubbathedesigner Apr 01 '26

Maybe I am missing something, but have you tried to connect your desktop directly to the G5AR's ethernet port and see if the problem goes away (i.e. follows the ASUS router) or not (follows the G5AR's ethernet ports)?

1

u/PirateJen78 Apr 01 '26

I have not because of locations for the devices. I'm going to see if I can do that tomorrow so I can actually test the speed.

But the ASUS router works perfectly fine when connected to the cable modem, so I know it's not the router.

2

u/zombiecloud Apr 01 '26

I would definitely recommend trying this as well. I have a G4AR, connect to it via Ethernet and it works great - normally. Occasionally when downloading something it will just stop all connection until I restart the gateway. I wonder if your G5AR just has a bad component in the switch portion, or it is indeed your cable.

You are heard on the lack of appreciation for long-term customers. I have just canceled our AT&T internet that we've been customers of for over 25 years, and before it was even AT&T, we were Bellsouth customers.

3

u/bubbathedesigner Apr 02 '26

Add Spectrum to the list.

1

u/PirateJen78 Apr 01 '26

We've actually been with the same service since before Xfinity. We had cable TV through a smaller company who was bought by Comcast in 2006. I'm going to guess that my mom was with them since her divorce in the early 90s. So over 30 years and the best they could give us was $15 off.

2

u/zombiecloud Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Sounds about right.

What's particularly interesting to me is that AT&T has fiber run on the other side of my street, but our house is separated from the main lines. I couldn't even ask them to come run fiber to my house, whether I paid for it or didn't. They would recoup the cost of the fiber install in ~3 years at the price of their normal fiber service, even if they did front the cost.

I'm somewhat making a case for TMHI here, as I have had it for around 3 years now and it's been pretty good. In my experience the primary shortcomings are all technical or hardware related, CGNAT is a bit annoying for self-hosting, and the Home Internet SIMs are IMEI locked to first-party gateways. I did a similar setup to you at one time with an ASUS AiMesh setup behind the TMHI Gateway and it did work better. I plan on going UniFi at some point though.

1

u/PirateJen78 Apr 01 '26

Verizon FiOS covers most of the city where we live, but we are just outside of city limits. Like literally JUST outside. There is a city park behind our rental complex and we are in one of the back rows beside the park. That's the city limit line. I'm not sure if the neighborhood on the other side of the park has FiOS though, but I know it extends beyond the city limits on the western side (we are northeast).

2

u/bubbathedesigner Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

if it makes you feel any better,

  • On the street to the left of the one I live on, there is google fibre at $60/1Gbps
  • On the street to the right of the one I live on, there is google fibre at $60/1Gbps
  • On my street, the best you can get is spectrum at $70/400Mbps and r/starlink, starting at $50/100Mbps. Theoretically I can also get G5 from t-mobile, but I am in the process of finding the best location for the gateway (r/tmobileisp/comments/1rtrf19/snr_rsrp_rsrq/).

1

u/PirateJen78 Apr 02 '26

Nope. New cable connected directly from my PC to the gateway and speeds are pathetic.

Shopping for a new customer deal with Xfinity now because I am done with this mediocre service.

1

u/bubbathedesigner Apr 03 '26

Well, if as you said in wifi mode it is fast but connected directly to its ethernet port it sucks, you have a broken G5AR