Nothing about this extender works consistently or as expected

Been testing this new 4G LTE extender now for almost 2 weeks. We have 3 identical Samsung s23's in use.

1) The display on the extender itself rarely ever shows any devices connected ("0 of 14 devices")

2) The web interface never shows any devices connected, but often DOES say that up to 5 devices have been connected in the last 24 hours.

3) Our phones never show any extender coverage in the connections settings, but maybe this is a Samsung and/or S23 thing? However, all 3 of our phones ARE connected almost all the time. (5 bars of service vs. 1 or 2 without the Ext., and confirmed by #48) How can it be so wrong all the time on its reporting or awareness of connected devices?

ALSO, regarding the extender itself, what a poorly designed piece of hardware.

a) No power light - the little white LED comes on for about a minute on startup, then nothing. (I was told by Verizon tech support that this was to "save power" - perhaps one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.

b) The display doesn't stay on, so you can't see any status unless you press the terrible, hard-to-find, can't be pressed with one hand button. Useless. Oh, it does come on randomly during the night quite often.

c) Was told before I bought that I could manually enter ID's to lock out other (neighbors) devices, which apparently is not the case.

d) Why can't it just be set to ALLOW the ID's of the 3 devices that I DO want to have access?

Accepted answers

SynthpopAddict

@ccsprague
wrote:
[snipped] Hopefully VZW IT will get it fixed as even tho I have 2 gig Fiber, I don't want to have to share my internet with freeloaders.

The network extender is a mini cell phone tower and anyone bogarting your service is going to count towards your cellular service plan as I've heard of people being throttled due to random others using up all the premium high-speed data allotment on their cellular plan. It would not count towards your fiber ISP usage.

Until Verizon fixes the "closed access list" problem, the only workaround is to lower the transmission range on the extender (or ditch the extender and either invest in a 3rd party signal booster system compatible with Verizon, or ditch everything for another mobile carrier who works better). Special thanks to Fdbk for sharing this elsewhere in the forums on how to lower the extender's range:

1) Press the button on the left side panel near the screen until you see an IP Address displayed.

2) From your computer that is connected to the same home network as the extender, type the IP address into the browser's URL bar and enter.

3) Now you should see a login page. The pw is LTEFemto0000 (with the zeros representing the last four of the MAC Address found on the back label or the screen).

4) Once logged in, from the left side menu select 'Settings' and then from the drop-down menu select 'Advanced'

5) Uncheck the box for 'Automatic Transit Power Mode' and use the slider bar to set the desired range and select 'Save'

Fdbk

I would recommend you try reaching out to support and have them raise a NRB ticket for their network team to change the LTE Band configuration (besides B13, there is B4 and B66) on the extender and see if that helps. At first, the agent might be unfamiliar with this process and go through the troubleshooting flow but eventually they should submit the ticket. After the ticket is worked and successful the provisioning server will send down the config change to the extender and reboot and logged this in the logs.

All comments

Fdbk

Hi,

#1 & #2 - It will only report devices that have an active phone call or surfing the internet. Showing none doesn't mean that your device is not connected to the extender only that a session is not being transmitted over the network at that time.

C & D - The "Managed Access" feature in the MyVerizon Website has been non-functional for a while now. Verizon's IT department is actively working to resolve this issue. Only workaround for the time being is to lower the "Transmit Power" in the extender's local admin GUI settings (Settings > Advanced).

ManyQuestions

Ok, thanks - that does seem to be the case. Still seems silly however, since the phone is obviously connected to the extender whether it is actually doing anything or not.

Regarding the managed access, maybe Verizon should just stop misleading people (I was told by 2 different reps before I bought it that it could be done) about the ability to 'lock out' unwanted users. I have also tried 3 times now to get the device added to my list of devices on our account, no luck. Most of the Verizon reps don't even seem to know what the Extender is or what its functions are. The last one transferred me to sales...

ccsprague

I am also having the same issue. Just got the new ASK-SFE116 as my Samsung one is no longer supported.

Seems like my phones are prefering to connect to the poor 5G signal in my area. Sometimes they connect and sometimes they don't. This is surprising considering that there is a Verizon tower nearby. Guess the area has been oversubscribed with home internet and mobile users.

Hopefully VZW IT will get it fixed as even tho I have 2 gig Fiber, I don't want to have to share my internet with freeloaders.

SynthpopAddict

I've heard you can still get the older Samsung extenders if you specifically ask for them, and someone reported they actually went back to the older Samsung after struggling with the newer Askey. The Samsung ones must be more reliable.

As for your phones preferring to connect to weak cellular (it's too bad nobody can band select on a Samsung or maybe any Android anymore) instead of your extender, wondering if that's an issue with the extender.

SynthpopAddict

@ccsprague
wrote:
[snipped] Hopefully VZW IT will get it fixed as even tho I have 2 gig Fiber, I don't want to have to share my internet with freeloaders.

1) Press the button on the left side panel near the screen until you see an IP Address displayed.

2) From your computer that is connected to the same home network as the extender, type the IP address into the browser's URL bar and enter.

3) Now you should see a login page. The pw is LTEFemto0000 (with the zeros representing the last four of the MAC Address found on the back label or the screen).

4) Once logged in, from the left side menu select 'Settings' and then from the drop-down menu select 'Advanced'

5) Uncheck the box for 'Automatic Transit Power Mode' and use the slider bar to set the desired range and select 'Save'

Fdbk