T-Mobile forcing NSA only

Technical Support for Routers 4G LTE, 5G NR, USB modems
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*I've edited my post to place the point of it at the top in case someone wants to avoid the gritty details

.....So everyone be aware. If you order a line with static IP from T-Mobile, and then decide no static IP, the line will remain locked to an NSA only configuration. Apparently their provisioning system does not remove that config when static is removed. If you start with static IP, and then decide to pull it off, order a new line, and then kill the one with static IP. They do not know how to fix this.

>The rest of the story<
I've discovered something about T-Mobile that might be useful to others. We did a demo of their business 5G unlimited with static IP using one of their routers- They sent a Inseego 3100. Those are very low end devices. As is known, T-Mobile forces NSA, and has to route back to a data center someplace. Our demo routed to Washington state and we are on the USA east coast. Ping from the router to our location was in excess of 200 ms. Ping to 8.8.8.8 - probably local to their DC - from the router was over 100ms.

I ended up ordering a SIM on our account and they give three DC locations for static. Washington, Chicago, or Philadelphia. We chose PA. Ping from our router to an IP at our location was better, but still vaied around 100ms. Our use is backhaul of rtsp video from a camera. We found their static IP solution had lots of timing jitter, interpacket paths were diferent, so lots of out of sequence packets, and then some - ~1% - packet loss.

Here is the reason for the post, and it's important for others to be aware of. I configured an Ovpn tunnel back directly to us. I then had them remove the static IP from the line. Latency went down to around 60ms. But, here's the kicker. The radio still would only connect in NSA mode. Signal parameters looked terrible, and it limited the band selection. As a test, I put my TMHI SIM in the router (necessary adjustment made) and the same router, at the same location worked great - signals, latency, etc. I reported that the account was locked in NSA. Customer support said they saw that, but didn't know how to change it. Said it was the SIM is burned for that. Go get another SIM and we'll mode the line to it.

That did not fix it. NSA only. Much discussion back and forth. They blame the router. Never mind that it works fine with my SIM. I ordered another line WITH their router, That connects in SA mode. Move that SIM to the X3000 with the "repair" removed. Connects in SA mode. Original line SIM in X3000 again, and NSA only.

Original SIM in the Inssego router they sent, and NSA / 4G only. Newly ordered line SIM that came with the Inseego back in it, N41 SA with excellent rates.

So everyone be aware. If you order a line with static IP from T-Mobile, and then decide no static IP, the line will remain locked to an NSA only configuration. Apparently their provisioning system does not remove that config when static is removed. If you start with static IP, and then decide to pull it off, order a new line, and then kill the one with static IP. They do not know how to fix this.

Hopefully this helps others avoid the headache and waste of time.

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Can you explain what is NSA, is it desirable?

So, static IP is only available from those 3 locations. No IPs addresses in Maryland?

I need a Maryland Static IP from T-Mobile.

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Not desirable. Standalone Mode vs. Non-Standalone Mode in 5G
Static IP is only available on business accounts. All your data to and from the router will go to Philadelphia to hand off to the Internet. Depending on what you are trying to do, an OpenVPN / WG tunnel to someplace you control is better.

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I had static, then removed it also. No issue connecting to NA or NSA on spitz ax.

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Same router here. I guess that means that the issue doesn't happen consistently. Still, T-Mobile has no idea how to fix it when it does.

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This is spot on. I also had a static and I did not understand why I had such high latency and limited throughput. After removing the static the connection is much more usable. Thanks!

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Check to make sure you are connecting in SA mode. For static to work, they force NSA mode. After removing the static IP, the modem still only would connect in NSA. Different line (SIM ) in same router at same location was SA. They had no idea how to remove the NSA only flag. Tech support could see it, but didn't know how to fix it. Escalating for them means escalating to some automated thing - not an actual engineer who looks at things - that responds back that there's no issue. Assigned "sales engineers" were of no use at all, and basically said that it's my router. Funny thing is that I ordered a second line WITH their router, and the SIM that came with it worked fine in SA. Put the NSA only line (SIM) in their router, and NSA only. Ordered two more "no static IP " lines as SIM only, and they work fine in SA mode in their router, and my routers. Cancelled original line that was static, and had the issue, as well as the line I ordered with their router.

They're gonna be issuing credits depending on how this "had to order additional lines for testing" thing shows up on the bill. If it's a couple of $10 activations and couple of weeks of service, not gonna bother. But if it's more....

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Oh yeah... One other thing. While it doesn't have a static IP, you do get dropped out on the Internet with some public IP. IP Chicken or what is my IP and see how far from you they get to the net. I'm in Wilmington, NC, and they backhaul to Charlotte. When it was static, initally it was here to Washington state, and then they moved it east so it was Philly PA. Wherevever you are, you should have a handoff point reasonably close to you. Like Austin TX might be Dallas or even Austin. Florida should be somewhere in Florida, etc. If you get hauled to someplace a 1000 miles away, something still not right. A good test would be if you have a T-Mobile phone, see where it hits the Internet. Your data should be the same on the router.

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Yeah so I’m in Florida and my IP was out of Chicago. So not sure how that happened or if that’s normal.

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"Was" or is out of Chicago? If it was out of Chicago when you had the static IP, that's because they backhaul to one of three data centers. Philly, Chicago, or Seattle. Say you have the router in Tampa, and you are trying to connect to something in your local area from the router - we'll say you have a camera connected to a cable modem on St. Pete Beach. ALL of your traffic goes from Tampa, to their local switch which is someplace in FL. It then went to Chicago over their network. You hit the Internet in Chicago, and the traffic finds it's way back to St. Pete Beach. Imagine a ping to that camera. Tampa(you) -> Chicago -> St. Pete Beach -> Chicago - > Tampa (you) - 4200 miles round trip for something that should be ~40 miles. The latency is from all the routing and switching along the way. I found they also had really bad interpacket time differences because they may route sequential packets over different paths. This led to lots of out of sequence packets.
Ping to 8.8.8.8 only shows 1/2 the latency since you only make one round trip and they hit something close to Chicago.
If you check your IP now with no static, you should have an IP somewhere within a few hundred miles likely in a large metro. That IP is not "yours" in that it's not at your router. It's a public IP facing the Internet that they NAT from and to you and many other customers.

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Yes it was out of Chicago with the static. Kinda crazy that they do that. I did not really "need" a static so I just had it removed. Now that I don't have a static my IP is within Tampa ( where I live, good guess by the way :slight_smile: ). I was also seeing issues with packet loss/out of sequence packets before removing the static.

Also when I removed the static I went from NSA to SA immediately however I'm using the Elsys Amplimax Ultra 5G. I also own the GL-X3000 however I prefer to mount it outside for maximum signal.

It looks like the best option is to use something like ngrok or a VPN if you really need port forwarding. Thanks for the thorough explanation hopefully this helps someone else in the future.

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I have public IP with T-mobile. The 5G NSA was the first thing I called out to the business rep and they told me public IP SA will be rolling out next year!

Fingers crossed.

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Check out wireguard if you have not already, it's so much faster that OpenVPN and easier to implement too.

Wow, you're only seeing 600 kbps through the connection? I assume this is through the tunnel. OpenVPN can slow things down a bunch. Try Wireguard and I bet you won't go back.

Out of curiosity, have you tried the GL-M2? I was curious if this would work via USB to a Mikrotik.

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No. While a hi-def camera might need 2-3 Mbps each to give a decent picture, I'm digitizing - encoding - analog NTSC video from multiple traffic camera feeds. Each of those cameras has a stream less than 1 Mbps coming out of the encoder... closer to 500 Kbps. I might have 9 of them streaming back at a time, so the total might be 4-5 Mbps. I can actually get close to 40 Mbps upstream through the tunnel.

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I don't know all about all these details, but I can say that I do connect to T-Mobile via SA and not just NSA.

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What the actual root issue was in my case was that I ordered the line with static IP. After seeing the awful performance due to their implementation, I had the static removed, The modem continued connecting in NSA mode. They had no idea how to fix it. The have no escalation path other then automated checks. The cure was to re-order a line without static IP, and cancel the original.

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