New Gen5 WiFi doesn't work reliably

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mweasner

Trust me when I say I feel your pain. I've spent a lot of time looking for an expedient way to get the 5GHz radio to work after it crashed because when it works, it's awesome. So I also hope they find out why it's happening and squash it... quickly.

Only when the fix is found, fully tested, and known to work reliably in the system will they start rolling out updates - so it's going to take some time. Typically they will accompany that with an announcement here to notify people, but I have also seen email notices sent for such things in the past.

Gen5 is not unreliable.  The 5Ghz radio in the HT2000W modem is (at this time).  

Conversely, as has been stated time and time again, for the time being, one can use the 2.4Ghz radio, or their own 3rd party router.  

Gen5 itself is fine. 

If the 5G radio is not reliable then perhaps a hardware recall will be required.  And if HughesNet continues to lease/sell a product with a known flaw they could run afoul of the Federal Trade Commission.

Or, they could simply disable the 5Ghz radio and remove that as a feature of the product, and be clear.  They advertised it as having wifi, not as having a 5Ghz radio.

mweasnerThere are several technical complications trying to make a 4-band 5GHz wifi radio work on a system like this to get the maximum speed out of it.

C0RR0SIVEand GabeU make some excellent points and we've all made several recommendations for the interim. Sorry, but we can't help you if you don't want to be helped, or your expectations aren't being met. The box can be proven to be suitable for purpose, so good luck proving otherwise.

One last set of recommendations in an attempt to continue be helpful: The problem (as I've seen it) seems to occur more when devices are entering and/or leaving the network. Until it's fixed, it's best to leave your mobile devices and things not needing high-speed for file downloads on the 2.4GHz side, especially if they're getting fringe reception. Those things that are close enough can also be patched in with Cat5 ethernet cable, which works even better than the 5GHz radio.

Or, you can continue to make threats about something that's actively being remedied... quite entirely up to you.

Thanks to everyone for the tips.  I haven't meant to sound negative about HughesNet.  Gen4 had been a good solution for my rural area.  I am just concerned that Gen5 was rolled out prematurely or without adequate customer beta testing.  The Gen5 Wi-Fi 5G network has been dead for hours now and the modem continues to drop offline entirely (via Ethernet and Wi-Fi) for short periods of time.  I plan to resume troubleshooting the Gen5 modem on Thursday and possibly make a final decision then about sticking with Gen5 or reverting back to Gen4.

There's no reverting back to Gen4... Gen4 plans have been retired in favor of Gen5.

My Goodness !!!!

This NOT a Gen5/Gen4 issue.

This is a 5.0 ghz frequency issue.

The HT2000w is a Modem first and primary, a Router (of sorts) as a secondary function and a Wifi source as a distant third.

There are going to be issues with the 5 ghz band ... the very nature of 5 ghz is to have less "penetration" than the 2.4 band. In addition you have got a lot electronics packed into a one box and it does NOT have any external antennas that can be used and adjusted to change/alter the WiFi radiation pattern.

Wifi routers like to be centrally located and they like to be elevated, things that are hard to do with an entire Modem.

You are making a mountain of a molehill, Turn off the HT2000w "radios", connect a decent or better grade Router that has a radiation pattern and features that meet your needs and the issue will be behind you.

For all we know you have a big refrigerator in the way or steel partition studding or any number of environmental issues that can be addressed or overcome with a router with external antennas and better configuration options.

In the end there is no kind of firmware update that is going to give an antenna-less unit the same performance as a good router.

.

Turn off the radios, get a good router, problem solved.

Thanks again everyone.  I will be doing the UPnP OFF tests tomorrow morning.  Just to clarify about the Wi-Fi 5G outages: it is dead from just 2 to 10 feet away from the modem.  There is nothing between the modem and the Wi-Fi device trying to connect.  When 5G works its range in the house goes at least 60' away from the modem.  When it is dead, it is really dead.