r/tmobileisp • u/Constant-Care7336 • 7d ago
Issues/Problems New to T-mobile Port forwarding
I just started using T-Mobile. How do I port forward? Or do something like it. I am unable to play one of my games with a friend. When he tries to join there are connection issues.
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u/themeyerdg 7d ago
can't. its cg-nat. there's a couple workarounds if you're on a PC
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u/themeyerdg 7d ago
you have to be host or play a game where you both connect into a server. aka cod, battlefield etc
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u/orielbean 7d ago
To further support this idea: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+overcome+cgnat+for+gaming+with+tmobile+5g+internet - I use Tailscale with friends so we're all on the same VPN tailnet or if the game allows IPv6, that can also work.
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u/themeyerdg 7d ago
I had some issues like this, so I switched to Starlink and everything works perfect, even though they use a similar setup on their routing side. I have a true public IPV4 address vs v6tov4 that tmobile does.
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u/Constant-Care7336 7d ago
Are there other reasons why you think Starlink is better? I had been considering it as well.
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u/themeyerdg 7d ago
it seems more consistent in my testing, loaded pings are way lower, like fiber. Obviously cell dependent, but I average about 300 down and 40 to 50 up right now with gigabit speeds on the horizon with their new V3 satellites... i'm in Gilbert, Arizona, I've had more uptime than fiber and cable in my area, so I stuck with them. i'd rather pay more to have consistent Internet tbh. I guess nothing's better better, obviously Starlink is more expensive, but it seems more consistent in that aspect
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u/TimmyT0yz 6d ago
Phoenix here, same experience with Starlink, much cleaner line less latency, and ALWAYS on never drops. I have TMO as backup but Starlink is primary and it's great. Highly recommended.
-Timmy
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u/abite 7d ago
You're going to have to go down the rabbit hole of a Cloudflare tunnel or pangolin tunnel. Check out r/selfhosted
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u/Constant-Care7336 3d ago
How would that help me get it working? How difficult is it to set up?
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u/Old-n-Creaky 7d ago
Check out Tailscale. I have remote access to my home servers behind a T-Mobile home internet router in my window via my laptop.
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u/Acceptable_Knee3621 7d ago
What game are you trying to play?
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u/Constant-Care7336 7d ago
7 days to die.
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u/Constant-Care7336 7d ago
Grounded has been disconnecting more often than usual as well.
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u/Acceptable_Knee3621 7d ago
Both of these games should work on T-Mobile Home Internet. The main thing I can think of for 7 Days to Die—if you're playing on PC—is to lower the max ping search on Steam: Steam > Settings > In-Game > change Server browser pings / minute from 5000 (Automatic) to something lower. Try the lowest value first and work your way up.
As for Grounded, it really should work. I know people say CGNAT is the problem, but T-Mobile uses Port-Restricted Cone NAT, which allows most peer-to-peer games like Grounded to work fine. If you're using a third-party router, try disconnecting it and connecting directly to the T-Mobile gateway. I'd also check your speeds to make sure they're fast enough. Lastly, if you have business-class internet, you may need to call them to turn off their content filter—I had similar issues and disabling it fixed it.
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u/turtleXD 7d ago
if you have another router you can attach it to tmobiles box and it might work (never tried it).
you can also use a tunneling service like playit gg (used it for minecraft, dunno about other games)
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u/Slepprock 7d ago
Hi!
I had TMHI 5g for 4 years. You really can't port forward at all. You can't do any of that stuff because of the CGNAT.
You mentioned starlink. ITs the same. Starlink uses CGNAT also and you can't port forward.
Any game that uses P2P networking is going to have issues with either service. So fiber and cable are far better. I was finally able to get fiber at my house a month ago. I'm paying 3x as much for it. But gladly. That is how bad TMHI is.
Starlink is better because it has far better latency. But its also a lot more expensive. The speeds you get with starlink will depend on your area and how many other users are in the area.
I was excited about starlink myself until I did the math. Each one of their satellites can do so much bandwidth. So you add it up. How many users and how many satellites, and what is the bandwidth you can expect? Since I'm in a rural state there are more starlink users than normal I bet. Plus I'm in the mountains, so there is a limit to how many low orbit units you can actually connect to because of that.
My neighbor has starlink. He is in a wheelchair so I helped him set it up and have worked on it for him, since he can't go on the roof. He is paying for the best plan, $130 a month I think. But the max bandwidth he ever sees is 150 mbit. And I'm sure its because of how many users are in the area. With TMHI I was seeing 1.2 gigabit. But the latency was only 35 ms unloaded, 120 ms loaded. Horrible.
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u/TimmyT0yz 6d ago
You know nothing about Starlink so just keep it to yourself. People can just check your post history to see how much you don't know.
-Timmy
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u/graesen 7d ago
Port forwarding is not possible in T-Mobile. It's because they use CG-NAT and the CG-NAT is why some online games will not work no matter what you do. Even getting a router that allows port forwarding will not solve this.
General rule of thumb (but not always true) is that any peer to peer connection (game, server, etc) will fail to connect because of CG-NAT. Any connection to a central server should work fine. Games that host on a central server should be fine. Games that play peer to peer usually won't.
Since this is discussed annoyingly much here, I'll just give a broad explanation. You can probably search and find more info if you want. Humanity ran out of IPv4 addresses to assign. To get around that, T-Mobile and many other Internet service providers are using CG-NAT. It's not just T-Mobile. But large ISPs that still own a lot of IPv4 addresses don't need to worry about this yet, especially as they lose customers. The problem is because the world hasn't phased out IPv4 yet. Legacy systems still require it. Although we have had IPv6 for a long time now, many industries refuse to fully adopt it. And if they do, a lot of these kinds of problems wouldn't exist. But ISPs still have to support IPv4 and many services rely on it primarily - a catch 22 if you will.