Will our extenders work with 5G and 5G phones?

[randys12]

If I get the new iPhone 12 and there is 5G service in my area, will my extender work the same that it’s working now, will it only work if I turn the 5G off on my phone?

Can you turn the 5G off on your iPhone 12? I don’t know. 

does Verizon at this time know of any issues with the Verizon extender/5G network?

[randys12]

And I have another question, how do you use the My Verizon app on your phone to do the community, to do this board I can’t figure it out?

[jav6]

---

@randys12 wrote:

If I get the new iPhone 12 and there is 5G service in my area, will my extender work the same that it’s working now, will it only work if I turn the 5G off on my phone?

Can you turn the 5G off on your iPhone 12? I don’t know. 

does Verizon at this time know of any issues with the Verizon extender/5G network?

---

The extenders do not interact with the wireless network.  They communicate to a VZW server via the internet which interacts with the wireless network.

[randys12]

What does this answer mean?  The extender is connecting to a server and not the towers?

Is yours working now by the way?

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello, randys12. Lot's of great questions! The iPhone 12 will be able to use the 4G network when 5G is unavailable. This means that your Network Extender will still be usable if the phone is only able to connect to a 4G network in your area. There isn't necessarily a 'switch' to disable the 5G network. 

This forum is only available from the website directly. 

HannahS_VZW

[randys12]

Thanks for responding, so if I have an iPhone 12 and the network in my area is 5G then my extender will no longer work at all?

In other words the phone won’t go to 4G unless 5g is not functioning, there is no way to turn the 5G off, and if reception here is as lousy with 5G as it is with 4G then we will have no reception and no way of getting reception?

[jav6]

---

@randys12 wrote:

What does this answer mean?  The extender is connecting to a server and not the towers?

Is yours working now by the way?

---

Correct.  The Network Extenders NEVER connect to a tower.  They provide their own mini-tower cell signal for local wireless connectivity and provide connection to the VZW network thru the internet.  As far as I know, the 4G LTE Extender is working fine at my son's house.  Will verify tonight.

[randys12]

So the towers can be working fine for the people across town who normally get 4 bar signal without needing an extender, as in there is no local tower or transmission issue, but our extenders might not be working because they have nothing to do with that, they are connecting to a server via the internet?

If the answer to that is yes, then I suppose rebooting the  modem might sometimes work when this happens.  I have comcast and  the x6 Gateway (tried the Netgear AC3200 3.1 modem router  to save on monthly fees, couldnt get it to connect to the 5 ghz, returned it and am now going to just pay Comcast for as long as I have them I guess) and rebooting it always makes me a bit nervous, never know if it will come back or not.  Comcast goes down a lot, I had suddenlink for 20 years in a different location and it went down once a year vs once every 3 days now.

[randys12]

VZ support does not have to respond to me in this thread anymore, I am doing a main thread titled 10/22/2020 about the extender not working...I dont want to have more than one thread as I know that drives you crazy so I wont post on this one again, thanks.

[skerber]

I was told that the iPhone 12 is NOT supported by the Samsung 4g Network extender.  I am unable to connect to the extender even though I do not have 5G available from where I am at.  I have seen that folks have been successful getting connected by changing the channel that the extender  listens on.  From what I see the phone has problems with channel 13.  Once it was changed to channel 66 in this case it worked fine.  I do not see how I can modify this setting from within the Samsung extender's web app.