T-Mobile Hotspot@Home having growing pains
T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home UMA service hasn’t been around for too long, but it looks like the company may be having a host of pretty significant issues. UMA service has been severely crippled for users across the country over the last several weeks, with customers reporting dropped calls, poor voice quality and, in many cases, a complete inability to connect to the network. It seems that most of this stems from the December 4th flooding at T-Mobile’s main data center in Bothell, WA. The UMA system went down at that point, and the main hosting servers had to be replaced. The new hardware is apparently up, but it isn’t having much of a positive effect on the overall system infrastructure. A big selling point for Hotspot@Home is centered around the service’s ability to provide T-Mobile phone service in areas that were previously inaccessible by the company’s network. As such, the downtime is leaving a lot of UMA customers completely without access to their phones. Here’s an official statement from T-Mobile on the matter:
"Some T-Mobile customers may have experienced diminished levels of service at times this week due to extreme weather-related events. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers. T-Mobile HotSpot @Home service is operating at normal service levels.”
On Dec 13, 2007 @ 5:21 pm, Raffy Said:
So maybe the prob is not in my curve
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 5:22 pm, Mark Mercado Said:
Still Down Here, Chicago IL, I miss it…
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 5:22 pm, 16 coming through roofless Said:
I have been using a curve on Hot spot at home, voice quality is great, always excellent signal. I have had one phone call drop between the handoff from wifi to the cell tower. If you make a shit ton of calls or have a poor signal at home or work this is great.
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 5:43 pm, Jeff Said:
There were some issues over the weekend and into Monday and part of Tuesday but now mine is working perfectly again as it has since it launched.
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 6:21 pm, osteopath Said:
i had this feature on my acct since tmo launched the blackberry curve in september…and after two months of troubleshooting with tmo, hours on the phone, i finally canceled the hotspot service. UMA still works… just pulls from regular plan minutes now… the UMA feature is nice, but hotspot is a total aggravating waste until they get the kinks out of it.
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 6:40 pm, Jeff B. Said:
Sounds like the rest of t-mo’s service.
Around here t-mo really doesn’t work too well but this I’m sure is just some deals with the flooding, I mean really how can you screw up WiFi from home?
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 6:48 pm, eric Said:
everything is up to par now. The server they used to route the calls to their network were affected by the floods in washington state according to a techincal care representative. It was going in and out randomly throughout the day. They have it up and running now, For a while i thought it was my curve but the error code in the wifi diagnostics on my curve pointed to a t-mo problem or an isp problem. Since a few days ago i have not had a problem at all and it works perfectly at other hotspots like borders and starbucks and it switches automatically with my “wifi preferred” settings. Don’t let this minor outage ruin yout opinion of this wonderful service. Because of tmobile i now have service in my house where verizon and att never worked (around here sprint/nextel just don’t work). With the feature i get unlimited calling too
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 6:53 pm, galvatron Said:
They just need to tweak the servers an move ther data center out of washington that’s all.
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 9:29 pm, Anthony to the S. Said:
how is it that they don’t field test these products before mass release?
http://paidandpopular.blogspot.com
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 10:03 pm, mingkee Said:
I think T-Mobile should have more data centers as needs of data (including @Home) increases dramatically
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On Dec 13, 2007 @ 10:44 pm, Ben Said:
no proplems in Kansas City!! w00t!
um it was field tested…
“Duh we want to be like Sp@@nt and just push devices and tech out without thinking….”
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 3:36 am, happyuser Said:
I have been using UMA since launch, and other than some minor glitches I am very happy to have server. As others have said, it is either this or no service in parts of my house
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 6:09 am, Wayne Schulz Said:
I’ve used UMA on my BB Curve since the launch. For consistent signal quality I found it almost mandatory to replace any old routers — my office Linksys wouldn’t auto connect yet the replacement $50 router from T-Mobile latches on like a champ.
UMA is the only service I use at home because the EDGE signal is just barely there in my geographic area.
With the exception of this past weekend where UMA did seem to be down for a day or two - I’m actually amazed at the quality of this service.
I rarely have delays, the email, voice and text follow me seamlessly from UMA to EDGE and back.
Handoffs from UMA to EDGE are not good if you live in a weak EDGE area like I do. What I consistently see as I travel out of UMA range is a progression of UMA -> sos ->edge -> EDGE — which of course drops my call. Traversing the opposite way (EDGE -> UMA) works better with a damn near seamless handoff.
Walking into HotSpots like Barnes / Noble and Starbucks is just amazing. My Blackberry latches right on to UMA. I’ve been surprised by the number of open WIFI connections that I’ve been able to use (in public places like the casino lobby). I have been into one or two Starbucks where the router didn’t automatically connect — and I suspect they either had older routers or some other issue.
It’s important for Hotspot @ Home users to realize that NOT ALL routers will support UMA. Just because you see the WIFI icon, does NOT mean the router is capable of carrying voice traffic for H@H.
For anyone having consistent trouble — try a T-Mobile router. It’s been widely reported to resolve many issues and I know it solved mine.
Once the browser options get “dialed in” — surfing the web is plenty fast, though it’s never going to rival the experience of a desktop - nor is it meant to.
Personally I think this type of technology is the wave of the future. It probably will never be the primary way of connecting our phones — but it shows a lot of promise.
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 7:38 am, Tim Said:
I have tmobile I don’t even get it wifi is only at home were is 3g dec 6 I don’t see it if they do come out with 3g I might not get it like I don’t get edge
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 8:26 am, Drew Said:
Working great in DC after a bit of down-time. Handoffs aren’t the greatest but I can make and receive calls with no issues.
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 3:54 pm, shizzy Said:
Please reboot your phone (remove battery) if you are experiencing problems. It seemed to resolve my connectivity issue for me and my entire family. It is such a great service, I absolutely love it. Go T-Mobile HotSpot @Home and Go Jimmy!!!
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 10:36 pm, R Said:
It’s amazing how some people are jsut out to bash certain carriers. At least T-Mobile offers this product to customers as an option to get around poor in home coverage. No carrier can cover every home.
T-Mobile should be praised for thier effort. After all no other company will offer this even though it is a huge benifit to customer because it would take away from thier landline business.
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On Dec 14, 2007 @ 11:15 pm, Ben Said:
I love the UMA (Wi-Fi), Using the curve I travel often to asia and Wi-Fi doesnt care about international boudries. In most places the WiFi worked as if I were back int the good ol’ USA. I was making calls from China just as if I were sitting at a Starbucks back in the USA. FREE INTERNATIONAL CALLS!!!
Go T-MO!!
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On Dec 15, 2007 @ 2:56 pm, tony Said:
Field test you say. It took like forever them to release uma nationwide . The couldn’t have posible have been more pepared for nationwide.rollout.I agree that this outage could have been avoided if the uma servers were located elsewhere. Havnt multi locations would be ideal but the cost of this isn’tat this point justicefide. T-mobile several million subscribers and as of the moment uma services plays such a small part in T-mobile role as a service provider. I hope was people learn about uma and the uma subscriber bass increase tmobile take all actions needed to make sure they have the nessary seveers and equiptment to make it run smothly.
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On Dec 19, 2007 @ 11:40 am, MM Said:
Awful service lately, but at least we now know why. Love my BB Curve (the Nokia 6086 handles UMA not nearly as well). As I type this, UMA service is going in and out while my wifi (and home VOIP) continues to work fine. Clearly the problem lies with TMO, and clearly they haven’t fixed this yet. “Normal service levels”?
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On Jan 5, 2008 @ 3:00 am, Benjamin from CA Said:
Here we are several weeks later and there are still a few minor glitches going on. Aside from having to reboot my device 1 or 2 times a day things have gotten better. Got a TMO Hotspot rep to confirm there are a few software issues still lingering but they hope to have everything back to the way it was prior to the flood in mid January. It’s a good service but I wish they would have been a little more forthcoming with info about problems. For the first couple of weeks they kept trying to blame it on my phone and tried to make me take it to their nearest corporate store to try another phone. That is 90 miles from me and it wasn’t until I asked for a supervisor and told them I wanted to discuss canceling my service that they told me the truth. I’m not trying to bash in anyone as all providers have their problems, but at the same time it shouldn’t take me bringing up switching to Helio’s unlimited plan to get an honest answer. Anyway hopefully this is almost over and we can put it all behind us
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On Jan 5, 2008 @ 6:20 pm, brian Said:
UMA may not be perfect, and TM may have glitches. BUT, anybody who has ATT, Verizon service does not have anything better to brag about. ATT/Cingular/ATT, they do not offer UMA. They may have the largest coverage of Analog Wireless and spotty GSM. The 3G/UMPTS/HSPERA is not a uniform offering in all areas of the US–and the Customer Service of ATT and Verizon can give a rip about what you want as a paying customer.
At least TM is trying something. UMA works in my house and switches seamlessly between Edge where ever I go. I have mini opera loaded on the BB8320 with reasonable speed at Starbucks and home. I make LD calls on UMA all day long. Also if you look at how many “Hotspots” are out there, most are TM and the same in Europe. I have already used UMA in Europe calling the US and it worked well. TM is saying that the future is a much simpler AP attachment with no router device that needs configuration setups.
So far I like it and my service cost is less then ATT with mail/data for their BB8700 configuration.
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On Feb 8, 2008 @ 5:07 pm, michael brashier Said:
After weeks of dropped calls ad inability to connect to my hotspot@home network with my Nokia I finally called TMob.
Basically they said “You have 2 different problems, we know about both. We have no idea when it will be fixed. Here is 50 free minutes.”
Not cool! I need my phone to work. I can rarely connect and when I do it drops the network after a few minutes And drops the call.
I live in Virginia, DC area.
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On Mar 4, 2008 @ 10:36 am, Mark Said:
Today is March 4, 2008. Service is about 80% working again. From Jun 07 to Sept 07 UMA service worked about 20% of time…MAJOR PROBLEMS. Then it worked 100% in Oct to Nov 07. My wife and I LOVED IT. Then servers got flooded in Dec 07 (NO BACKUP…WHAT THE HELL) Completely out in Dec 07, Jan 08 then in Feb 08 was up about 20%. In the past 8 months it has worked 2 months. When it works it is great. However I do not think I can take the stress anymore of dropped calls and “T-Mobile 6.1 Network Error”. This week I am getting two new unlmited everything phones from sprint…yes it will cost me more money…but the stress of this crap is getting old. There is no reason T-Mobile couldn’t have had back up servers. I spent 4 months on phones with tech support, then it worked 2 months perfect to then go down again for 3 months and still not working as it did when it did work…I think I am burned out.
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On May 15, 2008 @ 6:26 pm, kika Said:
I received a bill with $184.00 in overcharge charges on my cell phone. I was alarmed and immediately called customer care to find out what happened and why I was charged that much in overage. The representative was able to discover that my bill did not have that many hot spot calls at home.
The call got transferred to a supervisor Jaime, who advised me that T-mobile will review the towers from which the calls were made to figure out of there was a problem. We went through the different times that billed calls were made and found a lot of calls that should not have been charged. I work 6-3 Monday and Tuesday and 9-6 Wednesday and Thursday and 7-4pm on Fridays. Jaime figured out that I was over billed, and in order to make sure that this did not happen again; he said that would transfer my problem to technical support to figure out what happened. Jaime did not call back at the pre-arranged time but instead called during my work hours and left a message. He did not leave an extension and just left the Sales phone #.
I called back and spoke to another customer service representative and supervisor that advised me that based on their conclusion the calls were valid. I asked what conclusion and was advised that technical had a note that calls were valid. The representative advised that technical department was a no contact department. I was advised that T-mobile was not able to assist anymore in the matter because they have concluded that the calls were all valid.
I went to a T-mobile store in chandler, explained my situation to a representative who again got on the phone and convinced customer care to look at the problem. Customer service representative put in a ticket into technical support. The customer service representative said that she will call me back May 14, 2008 with a resolution. I requested a detailed bill be mailed to my house and said that I would pay the additional fee to get a detailed bill. I never received that bill. The representative in the T-mobile store suggested that I check online for the bill details.
I never received a call May 14, 2008. So I called back on May 15, 2008, I spoke to a customer care representative who again advised that all calls were valid. I spoke to a supervisor, advised him that after I went into the store I looked online, printed out my bill and during February and March I had a period of over three weeks where no hot spot calls registered to my computer. He said that well we may never know why that happened but since you did not go over your minutes that month has nothing to do with this month. I advised him that I am not even able to see my bill online and advised that another ticket will be placed for that.
I am requesting that someone explain to me why am not able to see my bill online and why no hotspot calls registered on my bill Feb-March. I am not sure if this is a phone or router issue but no one seems to be able to listen. Every time I call in, I am speaking with I different representative. Can T-mobile review my calls and correct my bill? I have changed plans and I am disappointed that I purchased this phone for the Hot-Spot at home; I never received a rebate as promised and now in this big night mare… I live in Queen Creek and the area is rural and sometimes I don’t even have service in my house. I need to have my bill corrected as this is very frustrating to get a run away.
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