Question

5G modem keeps losing 5G

  • 31 December 2023
  • 5 replies
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My 5G modem (arcadyan) keeps randomly losing 5G connection. It happens randomly and once or twice a month. When it loses 5G, it switches to 4G which works but is obviously slower. There are cases where 4G also slows downs to a few kb/s. The only solution is to unplug and restart. Another problem is that I have my own router connected through Ethernet. I don't use the T-Mobile modem wifi. Whenever I restart the modem, 5G won't come up if the Ethernet cable is plugged. The only way to get 5G is to restart the modem with Ethernet unplugged and connect Ethernet once the modem locked on 5G. Sounds like bad firmware on that modem. Am I the only one experiencing this ? Obviously T-Mobile customer service has no clue. The only thing they suggest is to restart the modem. 


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My 5G modem (arcadyan) keeps randomly losing 5G connection. It happens randomly and once or twice a month. When it loses 5G, it switches to 4G which works but is obviously slower. There are cases where 4G also slows downs to a few kb/s. The only solution is to unplug and restart. Another problem is that I have my own router connected through Ethernet. I don't use the T-Mobile modem wifi. Whenever I restart the modem, 5G won't come up if the Ethernet cable is plugged. The only way to get 5G is to restart the modem with Ethernet unplugged and connect Ethernet once the modem locked on 5G. Sounds like bad firmware on that modem. Am I the only one experiencing this ? Obviously T-Mobile customer service has no clue. The only thing they suggest is to restart the modem. 

   I had the similar problem with the older black gateways. We now got the brand new Arcadian G4AR gateways/router. This new router from T-mobile has now never went off line for over 2 months now. Plus this new router has more wifi transmitting power by a fair amount. Take your old gateway to a T-Mobile store and exchange routers for the brand new white gateways G4AR.  If the store gives you grief about exchanging it. You can always stop your home internet for 5 minutes and then start a new home internet device over again. My store near me exchanged without issues. But friend only got the brand new white gateways by turning in his old router. Then went to next store a few miles away and got the brand new design router.  Hope this makes sense and helps.  Good luck

I too have seen this behavior with the Arcadyan KVD21.  With ethernet connected, if the modem needs to restart, it often locks itself to 4G (b71 here) and never switches over to 5G (b66 & n41 here).  I’ve seen this repeated with even 5 reboots, and seen it stay on 4G for hours.   If I unplug the ethernet and reboot it, it quickly locks to 5G and it will remain connected to it unless rebooted.

I bought a second hand Nokia gateway to experiment with. This one is always on 5G b66/n41 shortly after boot. It’s also noticeably faster at download rates on the same tower here.

It is possibly some kind of degradation of the Arcadyan box because I don’t recall having this 4G w/ ethernet problem when it was new.  It is also possible a firmware update caused it to start happening.

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What are your advanced cellular Metrics? Take a look and post it. It helps to see what the Gateway is receiving or connecting numbers.

What are your advanced cellular Metrics? Take a look and post it. It helps to see what the Gateway is receiving or connecting numbers.

I don’t have the Arcadyan connected at the moment but, with it in the best place I could find (by looking at signal stats and speed tests),  I remember 4G/5G with RSRP -76 to -82, 4G SINR of 4-10, 5G SINR of 12-17.  B66 and B71 had similar reception numbers so I’m not sure why it preferred B71 if it was because of signal.

It’s all on the same ~1 mile away (water)tower with perhaps LTE being blocked by a building as there are antennas on the top of the tower and midline of the tower.

I agree that signal quality is a possibility.   But it’s a problem the Nokia doesn’t seem to have.

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Here is a graph or image that you can sue for reference. Yeah B71 is the extended distance but slow speed band. 

 

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