Netgear AC791L jetpack never regains lost signal
shofixti
Newbie

My jetpack used to waver between one and three bars of LTE coverage depending on time of day. This was the norm for a couple of years.

For the past several weeks, I have noticed now that after a clean reboot, it always starts at three bars and then only ratchets downward. It will never go back up if it drops - it will go from three to two and finally one, where it will remain until I reboot again. It also feels like I have to reboot several times a day now, rather than once every day or three as it used to be.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior?

Verizon - is this expected?

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John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

There might be a hardware failure on the Jetpack.  If so then the only way to repair it is to swap the device with a new one.

To verify the problem is isolated to the Jetpack try to grab a 2nd Verizon device.  Then compare the signal strength from the diagnostics areas when the two devices are side by side.

If the Jetpack reports significantly worse signal strength than the 2nd Verizon device then its likely bad hardware and needs to be swapped.

If both devices are poor service then its likely a service problem in that area.

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vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

I'm sorry to hear the jetpack is having these signal issues, Shofixti. Let's look further into this. Is the device damaged? Are any other Verizon devices having similar issues? Did this start after a software update? 

 

JoeL_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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shofixti
Newbie

John - Seems like an odd failure mode for hardware - the whole "works but over time it clocks down to one bar and never recovers" thing. Feels more like a software/firmware thing. I do recall reading that the jetpacks will clock down when idle; one assumes it would clock back up again without a reboot. I don't have another hotspot, but I do have an iPhone on VZW and it works fine, signal goes both up and down as usual.

Joel - how can I check the date of the last software update? I can't tell you if that's exactly when the problem started, but I can let you know if it's in the right ballpark. I don't think I've manually updated the device in months, so it would have been a forced update of some sort.

Thanks to both of you for responding!

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John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

Jetpacks have the equivalent of a standby mode (i forget the specific name of it at the moment).  You can see this activity in the log files of the Jetpack if you turn on the diagnostics.  It was a much more prevalent problem with the earlier models than the current ones.

In a nutshell, the Jetpack determines when the signal is not being actively used and switches itself in and out of this mode to the best of its abilities.  However, its not a gradual decline in performance, its an all or nothing kind of deal.  As soon as something is requested to or from the Jetpack its supposed to wake up and return to full strength.

To me the symptoms of your scenario sound familiar but not quite the same as this software feature designed to help VZW keep the airwaves reserved for active devices.  What you described is the slow overload or overheating of a component tied to the radio.  If it were software related it would be a memory leak of some kind that gets worse until you reboot the machine and restart the memory.

However, unless you are not using the most recent firmware version for your Jetpack then the next and most likely solution is hardware replacement.  VZW should be happy to do this for you if you have any warranty remaining on the device.

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vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

shofixti, I understand the need to check what date the software update came through. My goal is to get to the bottom of this for you. There is no way to check the date. When it comes to the signal continuing to drop I want you to perform a hard reset on your Jetpack. I have included a link on how. Let me know if this helps.

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-175407/

 

Justin_VZW
Follow us on TWITTER @VZWSupport
If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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