Forum Discussion
Every Issue We have had with TMHI
We do not play video games, so we were not concerned with the NAT issues that gamers have, so we thought based on the speeds we were getting with our 5g phones & with 5G tower in the parking lot behind our house we would give TMHI a shot.
Our Spectrum rates had shot up again to $70 /mo 500 ultra after 1 year promo, so $50/mo guaranteed for life seemed like a great deal until.…
1) While My Brother has the Nokia we were sent an Arkadyan. Everything went well until less than a week on Service (Christmas Eve) our unit was updated to firmware 1.00.18. With this update we lost all 5g, dropped to b12 from b66 & WiFi devices kept going offline
2)With the Christmas Holiday & Bad weather back east it took a week to get another replacement. We requested the Nokia but was told they only replace like for like & Will only get another Arkadyan. BTW, It took me over 2 hours on hold to get through to HI tech support (which is normal occurence)
3)Less than a week later , this replacement also received update 1.00.18 & too was broken afterwards with same issues as my 1st unit.
4) I am now on my 3rd Arkadyan & it still is on 1.00.16 so back to receiving speeds over 600 down & 100 up on N41 (5g)
5) So here our my other issues with Arkadyan unit :
6) Roku Dual Band Devices can not connect to Arkadyan 5ghz band ssid. They can not see it. According to Roku they need to see channel 161 on 5ghz, so evidently the Arkadyan does not broadcast on channel 161. My Brothers Nokia does & he has no issue with Roku devices connecting on Nokia 5ghz ssid.
7) Even though T-Mobile States that TMHI works with VOIP providers that support IPV6, it evidently will not work with MagicJack which needs SIP ALG turned off & UDP ports 5060-5070 open. With No UPNP or Port Forwarding or Firewall settings & CG-NAT there is no way to get MagicJack to work reliably. It was working flawlessly for 25 days until one day it wasn't. While we have no issues making outgoing calls, inbound caller can not hear us, yet we can hear them. We are not out the Cost of 1 years MagicJack Service ($40) plus the $20 port in fee to transfer number from Spectrum.
8) With us being able to make outbound calls with MagicJack, but not inbound calls, we decided to forward our MagicJack number to a digits talk & text line. We installed the digits on 3 phones. When a call comes in all 3 phones ring. However if phone A answers the phone & it's for Phone B we would like to transfer the call from A to B. The Digits app gives you two options: Transfer call to any other phone number or to Switch the call to another Device with Digits. Neither function works.The call will go on hold, the pop up for the function (transfer call or switch device) freezes, and the call will go into perpetual hold and you will not be able to resume the call. So we can not reliable use Digits to manage incoming calls for the family .
9) We signed up for Ooma yesterday being that it is heavily promoted by T-Mobile, so hoping that it works with no issue. Ooma is going to cost 4x the price ($10/mo & $6/mo taxes) annually over MagicJack!
It's odd that your firmware keeps getting updated. I've had my KVD21 for about 6 weeks and it is still running 1.00.16. I'm in S. Florida so there may be a difference between what they roll out in different locations around the country. Right now I can't get 5G on my gateway, just 4G LTE, but the speeds are very good and I haven't had a single problem with latency or dropouts. If I use Speedtest I can see my speeds slow down a bit in the middle of the day, but luckily I'm not seeing an performance hit with the devices in my home, including computers, smart switches, security devices and 3 TVs.
I agree that there is a real problem with the Arcadyan KVD21 5G gateway's not being able to be configured. In your case it affects your use of VoIP, for others it has to do with NAT settings in order to use security devices or gaming.
The reality here is that Fixed Wireless Internet (FWI) is a new service for T-Mobile and Verizon and they're trying to grow it as quickly as they can in order to create more income per tower. They have opted for simplicity of operation over functionality and matched it with a low price of operation. As you noted, and I too have experienced, the wired cable operators like Comcast or Xfinity are expensive and sell you way more bandwidth than most households actually need. Xfinity was selling 800 Mbps which is way more than a two-person household can possible use. Also, you didn't mention the inconvenience of data caps, a favorite trick of Xfinity.
For the record, we had Ooma for many years and it operated very well. That was back when we had DSL in the house and there were no limitations on configuring the router. We finally decided that we had good coverage on our cell phones, so we dropped Ooma and went totally wireless. We've never regretted it. This is even truer today since iPhones (and I presume Android phones as well) can use WiFi to make calls, making cell coverage less about tower location and more about WiFi.
Good luck with your quest on VoIP. I'd be curious to see how you make out.
We need a VOIP (landline alternative) for faxing as well as convenience of being able to pick up one of 12 handsets place around the house and then being able to easily have another person pick up Handset if call is for them or to multiple on a call without having to initiate 3 way calling etc.
I am having issues with Wifi calling, which I forget to post ...On outbound calls , the call can not hear me after Intital hello. Strangely its the opposite of Magic Jack where issue is inbound calls vs Outbound calls.
