Do you have 1609 gateway firmware update yet and how is it working for you?

I received the update sometime in the last week, I can confirm that my VPN connection through Cisco any connect now works consistently. I have no change in up/ download speeds. 120-190 down and 30-50 up. B2 and N71 on the tower connection. Once in a great while B66, but I haven’t seen that in a month. I’m going on two months with this service. I’m satisfied so far, it meets our needs at a great price. Also I noticed my ping times went 80-100 to 25-30, mostly 25. 

Ever since I got it my 3 bar 5G signal drops and never comes back until reboot. Further I live in a Ultra 5G coverage area and at one point was getting 500+ down. Now my max download in the best spot in my home direct line of site to tower .5 miles away is 75ish. Worse is when the 5G signal goes away my download is still 75ish so this proves that my can never ever uses the 5G anymore it just sticks to 4G.

So for me so far not impressed. I had high hopes for the can internet. I really wanted to get rid of Comcast and I have cancelled them. 75ish just about holds the household with my mother in law streaming all day and my wife and I on zoom calls. But as I suspected now that we have canceled Comcast is sending us deal offers. Now they are offering me 200 down for only $29 locked for 2 years I have my own modem so that is much less than the can and over double the speed. The only issue is the pending Comcast data cap that is to come now next Jan. We were going over but not ever month so maybe I can live with it. I Have been a TM cell customer 21 years very happy but the internet quite a different story.

So in ref to:

According to the  T-mo Report of a month ago, here is what is in the update:

The update claims to fix two known VPN issues, one with Cisco AnyConnect and one with GlobalProtect. More importantly, the update claims to improve the poor 5G signal experience. Apparently, this fixes situations where a 5G signal is poor and the LTE signal would be a better connection.

My 5G signal experience was disimproved it now drops after a few hours and never returns till reboot and seems to not be used anyways.

But it says LTE was improved so maybe now my can thinks LTE is best and drops the 5G to improve my experience (yea right).

The waveform is the only one that is good. I have purchased some others from Amazon and taken apart and tested only the waveform one is worth it, https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-gateway

I have the panel one since I do not have line of sight.

This is exactly the same here. We were doing well and all of the sudden we are crawling...if that. :(

I don’t know if rebooting will help, but that’s next.

When you called tech support, did you ask them if it is possible for them to push out the previous firmware version to you? I do not know if this is possible, but it is certainly something I would want to try if I were in your situation and they could do that.

One reason I posted this thread was that I wanted the more tech-inclined or tech-interested people that have the time and inclination, to be watching for when they receive the 1609 update and differences it makes.

Otherwise what happens in these situations is that people with any sort of problems that crop up want to associate it with the update, even though the problem may have occurred days before they got the new update.

That said, your problem sounds like something that could be associated with the update. 

Since these updates occur automatically, I’m not sure if it is possible -- probably not -- for you to call up and request the old gateway firmware version be pushed out to you, to see if that gets you back to your 500+ speeds.

I myself have had the experience of it dynamically switching to the 4G-only band and dropping my speed to less than 30, whereas my 5G speeds, on B2/n41 or B66/n41, now rarely go below 100 and average about 190. However, that speed drop onto the 4G has happened only about 4 times in three months, and I was able to restart the gateway and get back to 5G immediately. I found a better location for my gateway, at a certain rotation and elevation where I now never get the slow speed.

I watched a video of a YouTube vlogger about this new 1609 update, and there was a comment by someone which mentioned your exact problem. Unless it was you, there is another person with this problem. It’s also possible it is something else and the gateway update is only a coincidence. Are you absolutely sure your problem coincided with getting the update? The only reason I know that I got the update overnight is that I had checked in the GUI for the last few days, since I’m expecting it and wanted to know when I got it.

Also, although it almost certain that a speed drop from 500+ to 75 is being switched to the 4G-only band, you should verify that in the GUI and note the specific band, and the band combination you are usually on with 5G. If you call up and talk with a service rep, being as specific as possible will help them understand your particular problem.

Of course, just getting 500+ means you are on 5G, and with the n41 mid-frequency signal, but getting 75 doesn’t always mean 4G. It could mean you are connecting to another tower with an n71 5G. I read a post with a person who had that problem, of getting n71 most of the time, with a very slow speed compared to the n41 they got some of the time.

I have been having terrible speed issues for almost a month and I don't know if it's the 1609 update but it was around that time things started getting bad. I've spent so much time on this and the only thing that got my speeds up to normal was when I took the sim from the LTE model they sent me to try and put it in the trashcan, my speeds instantly went back to normal. 2 days later my speeds are back to 5mbps. My speeds when I first got this service (for 5 months) were around 180mbps down so I know good speeds are possible. Has anyone found a fix for this? These are now my normal speeds. (The second picture is my TMobile cellular service)

I have the same setup, plan on using Tmobile on WAN2 have you tried that configuration?

I get the same two band combinations as you with similar speed differences, only my top speed is 100 higher. After the 1609 update, I still connect “naturally” (without doing anything) to the slower combination about 80% of the time, but I can get the faster B2/n41 all the time just by restarting the gateway in the morning, being sure to pause 5 seconds with it off for it to drop the slower band, and then it will usually remain connected for the rest of the day on the fast combination.

It’s good to hear that someone got your benefit out of the update though, because a few of the first responses at the time of the update were that it did the opposite -- a few people were unable to get a fast combination they used to get after the update.

What external antenna do you have?

I still cannot connect my Cisco 801W router to the internet. I have been on with support 4 times now, with well over 1 hour waiting each time. The Cisco support team instructed me to confirm that VPN passthrough and/or  Port Forwarding -TCP/UDP500 was open. The support team could not answer this and would research further. I received a call back and was informed the Gateway does not support those types of configurations. They insisted the issue was on my end since they have fixed “All” Cisco AnyConnect issues. 

So they are not helping in any way. I had one last session last night, I requested the firmware be rolled back to .0168, since that is what I can see has worked in other comments and an associate of mine who has the exact same setup had his gateway reverted to that and it works fine.

I was told they “are not allowed to roll back to that version” and refused to do so. I asked to speak to a manager, was put on hold for 55 minutes (it was obvious they were hoping I would give up and hang up) and a manager finally came on the line and said they can’t help. I pushed for a reason, since others have had it done and after some back and forth, HE HUNG UP ON ME. I know they have my # since they had called me back previously. He never called back.

This is horrible and totally unacceptable, T-Mobile is not a good company in my mind and am considering dropping all our phone plans as well.

My advise is to look elsewhere for internet providers. T-Mobile may be cheaper but the service is so bad it is not worth it.

I got the update at 4am today.

I had the option of 2 towers that are located 10 degrees apart. The n41 tower is about 1000 ft closer with a good line of site. The n71 tower is pretty obstructed and I had problems picking it up before the update. 

I preferred the n41 because of better up and down speeds and I could stay locked on to it. Now I am locked on to the n71 with its lousy speeds and constant shifting to even lower speed bands. The n41 doesnt show up with direction adjustments or reboots. I am hoping its just a temporary maintenance issue on my “good” tower.