Why does my mobile hotspot disconnect every 5 minutes?

This sounds like user error.

Hotspot settings need to be adjusted to not time out after idling for 5,10 minutes. You can change this to never occur.

Pro tip: Restart your device before you enable your hotspot. This helps connect much better, albeit I haven't needed to do this in recent events. 

Hotspot is only as good as the data connection and coverage available to you; Peak hours, rate plan, device capability Signal quality, and the fact on device data takes priority over mobile hotspot.

Typical, the customers I see complaining about their hotspot experience are using it in a way it wasn't i Intended to be used and they would be better suited to use other means to access the Internet. 

My hotspot on my cell phone goes off like every 5 to 10 mins. I have checked all my phone settings and still does it, at this point I think the carrier is doing it and I am going to change phone company for my cell phone.

This seems an old thread, but it’s an ongoing problem. Does anybody have a clue why my hotspot will randomly disconnect from the internet (usually after accessing a web page) even though the rest of my connected network (printer, et al.) remains usable? It only shuts off the internet gateway and this is unknown until I try to access another site. Sometimes it disconnects my laptop (Win 11) from the hotspot. Usually it doesn’t. Regardless, it is unusable until I restart the hotspot--then back to business for an hour. Or two minutes. Or half a day. Or 23 minutes. Or less. Or more. 

This is an Inseego M3000 and the 100G/month 5G plan, connected to a brand new HP laptop running Win 11. All updates in place.

So, any answers? I travel in an RV and the signal strength seems robust enough, but this dropout has been happening more and more as I move north and east in the US (today in VT).

Connect hotspot via bluetooth on your laptop, not via wifi. it will stay. 

This happens to me when on my house barge at a marina where I can’t get WiFi. I tether to my phone with the Magenta Max plan, 40GB of hotspot.  I connect wirelessly and can connect for just a little while before my phone just drops the connection. I seem to have more time before it drops if I connect physically via USB between my phone and laptop. My T-Mo coverage here is strong - too bad the hotspot does NOT work as advertised!

Same here. Got new iPhone 11 and new laptop and can’t connect. Laptop doesn’t sense the hotspot OR connects for a minute or so and then hotspot disappears and can’t be found again. T-Mobile has to fix this!!!

Same.  Hotspot on. Cellular signal drops constantly.

Same here - in fact I had to disconnect and reconnect three separate times just to read and post here. Stays connected for a couple minutes and then drops out. Have to forget it and shut off wifi on my laptop, and disable and enable the hot spot discoverability on my iPhone X. Very frusterating. Considering paying for the AT&T hotspot built into my truck but the service isn’t as good so you can’t win.

Any update on this from anyone? I got back to NYC after 5 months in Puerto Rico and Mexico where I was using my cellular hotspot on my iPhone X on T-Mobile and Telmex networks respectively. Even when the signal dropped to one bar of LTE or even 3G, the speed and connection was well stable to both of my laptops,  Macbook Air (Intel, Mojave), and my X1 Carbon (Windows 10). As soon as I was back on the T-Mobile network in mainland US, my hotspot has not worked properly since. Constant dropouts every couple of minutes and that is whether any of my devices can even find the network despite being on full 5G or LTE Signal. I’m on the Magenta with and extra 20GB of Hotspot data per month, too. After trying everything and speaking with T Mobile multiple times and for hours, there has been a ticket sitting with their tech team for over a week. They called back the other day asking if I have seen any changes, which I haven’t, but would not tell me what they even attempted to resolve the issue.

Also to add to the more devices to the mix, the hotspot works equally as bad from my iPhone 12 Mini to Macbook Air (M1, Big Sur). I share my plan with a friend and his line (using iPhone 11 Pro) is experiencing the exact same issues as mine.

No it was not. It still happens all the time.