Day One with the Arc Gateway

Arcadyan KVD21Gateway Web UI Cons:

• Extremely limited management capability for local network. 
• Absence of cellular connectivity details.
• Absence of internet channel metrics.
• Absence of WIFI channel information.
• No configuration for WIFI channel selection. 
• No statistics/metrics for cellular or WIFI traffic. 

After review of the online manual for the new router it is clear cualquier attempt to troubleshoot the cellular connectivity or manage WIFI networks is pretty much near impossible. The lack of visibility for any significant data demands an immediate call to T-Mobile support and no way to really provide an intelligent report of operation. Maybe the T-Mobile engineer has some visibility and proper training to look at and understand the cellular data but it could be a BIG IF. If the router signal is bouncing between an n41 and an n71 signal because of being on the edge of one cellular signal or the other you will never know. If the signal strength strength, signal quality, and signal to noise ratio are borderline you will not really know other than it functions poorly. Todos the diagnostic analysis is on the T-Mobile support engineers. If there are TX or RX errors or dropped packets it would be necessary to start to investigate with clients as the router will not provide any clues. Performance analysis is completely from the client side with no way to determine much of anything with the router. 

I get it that the Arcadyan KVD21 is new but it does not appear to be close to prime time delivery. The software is very immature and seriously lacking. I am just happy my Nokia router has been stable as it at least provides a much more robust reporting and at least some configuration capability. With the Arcadyan I can see more users spending más time on the phone with support for assistance due to such limited capability and not being able to properly characterize the behavior. T-Mobile needs to step up the development of the router software to have some basic built in reporting at a minimum. 

I was hopeful T-Mobile would deliver an improved router solution for users but concerned this is not it.

henrod wrote:

Ugh. It's the support center in the Philippines. I worked in retail and my corporate support and HR were farmed out there. They read from scripts and do not understand well nor communicate well in English. It's a travesty. 

Yep, it’s sad. I can’t understand what they are saying, they repeat everything, and they still don’t understand the problem, but they do remind me often that they are experts!

You should do a little Verizion tower search in advance just for giggles. It might be they have towers better situated for your location. Of course it all comes down to how well any vendor implements the solution. I really wanted no contract and I had to cough up for 5 phones to boot at the same time to get the family all online here. It was a good deal with T-Mobile and it works pretty well so I am happy.

So, the timer is running…. Hopefully the need to reboot/reset is not like the Nokia. So, the setup is simplified but does the web management of the router also reflect reduced management options? The management of the Nokia is pretty limited I could not imagine having a much more dumbed down management option. 

So, you see cellular signal strength improved but internet speed is a bit slower. Hum… I guess not having to reset the router every 2-3 days would be an improvement but it would be good if the Arc also can carry the bandwidth as well. I have the Nokia router but I have never had the problem you have been dealing with. I still think that may have been possibly related to when the routers were manufactured. I started out in the BETA period and my router has been stable so I can't really relate to the frequent resets requirement. It has been up now for 44 days and still kicking. 

I can relate with comments on inconsistent tech support response but not universal. I have had some very positive interactions with T-Mobile support and also encountered some agents that just are not on the same level. It is pretty common in the industry that level 1 support engineer turnover leads to a support base that is just not up to par. Some of them are knowledgeable and know when to leverage escalation engineers when they are in over their head. Others just don't have the skills and are just going by the scripts. Customer support is only as good as the database access provided to the front line and the training they receive. Part of it can also be due to pressure from management for call volume and how the support engineers are paid based upon call metrics. Handling quality call response is more important to me over volume but support costs puts undue pressure on on agents to get the next call. 

I know there are a lot of cons, but none of that matters to me if it works constantly. So far it has been bad. T-Mobile claims they are working on the tower, but I doubt that it true. Slow speed and services pauses are the norm now. I don't have to restart it all the time, but it does pause often. I'm going to hold off returning the trashcan gateway.

MisterK wrote:

So far so good. T-Mobile replaced my Nokia trashcan (rightfully nicknamed) without question. I needed to restart my trashcan 57 times in 149 days for an average of once every 2-3/4 days. Although possible, it would be hard to believe that the Arc Gateway could be worse.

Arc Gateway Pros:
Easy setup once I swapped out the sim it came with for my sim from my Nokia trashcan. Sadly, support did not know that this is why I had no internet. I had to suggest the swap. The GUI is much simpler than the trash can. There are only two SSID settings. First is automatic sending out a combination of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signals. The second setting allows you to separate those signals, and those are the only options. This is significantly less than the trash can, but as far as I am concerned, it's no more than 99% of the users need. The Arc device is a bit smaller than the trashcan. Signal strength is better, internet speed is a bit slower.

Arc Gateway Cons:
Heat generation is about the same. Not bad, but given the technology of chips today, heat should not even be a factor. There's no reset button, just a buried factory reset. OK, if the device works correctly, then there is no need for resetting. No guest network option.

Tech Support:
Tech support is horrible. I call, they say "don't worry, I'm an expert and I will get this fixed for you." I have yet to be impressed. I think they like hearing themselves talk. I tell them the problem, they repeat it back to me twice, and yet they still don't understand what the problem is. Yesterday when setting up the Arc Gateway I asked if the firmware version that was shown in the web interface was the current version. I was told it was. Last night the firmware was updated on my device. I could go on and on about things they should know but they don't Anyone who has contacted support knows what I am talking about.

Ugh. It's the support center in the Philippines. I worked in retail and my corporate support and HR were farmed out there. They read from scripts and do not understand well nor communicate well in English. It's a travesty. 

Thats a shame it is so unreliable there. I have been fortunate to have had a connection to a pretty stable tower. It may only be n71 but at least it is pretty stable. The mid band in town does NOT work well for delivery of data to my iPhone 12 Pro. When the signal shows the 5G "ultra capacity" that is really not the case. It is hard to say if it is the radio in the iPhone or the tower signal. T-Mobile has some work to do for sure. Hopefully the message from T-MO is true and they are working on the tower. Here when they worked on the tower equipment it was only unstable for maybe a week. It is hard to tell how long the equipment is acting up before they are reconfiguring and reloading the gear. 

I don't want to be too negative about T-Mobile and their efforts but the decision to push out another router solution with a premature software tool set is not impressive. The most difficult part of trouble shooting the issue is that there is no visibility to the upstream device and the local router is so ill equipped to provide any useful data. If there was a flag that would trigger a notification to the user when the router first detects upstream failure that would be very helpful. I can't tell you how many times I spent excessive efforts with the router itself only to find out the issue was on the tower. With the cellular channel signaling and flight delay and signal metrics a creative developer should be able to code up proactive monitoring notifications. If T-Mobile wants to really provide better customer support they need to get out of the box and work on solutions that help prevent user calls. I don't see that going the proper direction right now. 

Hope your tower connection improves soon. Before you give up. 😉 

😎 Thats their job! Would you rather call an amateur or an expert or no a phone bott? I don't know that there is a worse experience than going to a phone tree that is 6-7 levels deep or a chat bott only to be at a dead end after 5-10 minutes on the phone or chat. T-Mobile has strived to be the un-carrier. Now they need to develop a support solution that pushes out of the box and not follow the status quo. Support is a challenge to be sure. Training and retaining good support engineers is a challenge. I would guess the support entity is an outsourced vendor so building a proper solution that is really effective will be hard. Support is the overhead unit for a business not the money maker so it seldom gets proper funding. Maybe T-Mobile will eventually get smarter and provide a solution that has built in metrics and reporting that can provide them with proactive data. With proper equipment monitoring, more skilled technicians and interactive analytics software operations could be monitored and faster responses could be made. 

I would be happy if the service worked and I did not have to call tech support.

I can understand that. When my connection here was unstable it was very frustrating. I joined the BETA program back in early January of 2021. It was a bit unpredictable then but became stable until late June and early July when it went wonky. T-Mobile engineers were working on the tower then to resolve it. They did and it has been pretty solid ever since. Now a little over a year on and it is pretty reliable and speeds are usually 10X what I had with the ISP vendor in CA for half the cost. Since it is this or HughesNet well it is obvious which is going to win that battle. This is much better than satellite and less expensive with no contract. No contest. Hopefully they will get your tower stable and you can get to enjoying the connection and not chatting with support.