JCap334's Posts

You're very welcome, dnieweg. I couldn't believe it myself that such a simple change of a setting fixed the issue entirely. 2 weeks later and our extenders at my work place have not had a single MME failure since I made the change on all 3 of them. And you are right, it is very sad. Sad in a sense that Verizon could not have thought of this fix themselves and helped us out. Honestly it was a stroke of luck on my part. I randomly researched the proper MTU to use on Ethernet, and everything said 1500. I think under heavy load, a 1450 MTU would cause fragmentation and the Extender would freak out and crash. I am so happy that after MONTHS of dealing with issue, I have one less thing to worry about at work lol! I hope others read my solution and have success as well. To Verizon, please add this solution to your support pages for the 1st gen 4G LTE Extender!

1) How many total cell phones and/or tablets can connect to my NE and eat my bandwidth? You can have 7 concurrent devices connected to your extender with an 8th reserved for emergency calls. 2) Is the connection limited to just voice, or does data also go down my pipe? The connection is a Band 13 700MHz 4G LTE signal for data, text, and HD Voice / VoLTE. 3) Is there any way to ensure I get priority over the guys down the street? Unfortunately the NE is an open system that anybody can connect to. The best you can do is lower the signal strength on the web interface of the extender by going to Settings --> Advanced. 4) The nearest Verizon cell tower is exactly 2.1 miles line-of-sight to my house.  There are several thousand houses in this neighborhood, between me and the tower.  Will those closer to me than to the tower all connect to my NE?  I am trying to figure out how this thing prioritizes who gets to connect. It's nothing to worry about because the extender does not pump out a very strong signal even at full power. Those within maybe 50 - 100 feet of your home may pick up the signal unless you lower the strength.

Alright guys, I think I finally solved the issue!!! In the web interface on all 3 of our extenders at my workplace. I went into Settings, then I changed the ""MTU Size" from 1450 to 1500. I then ran multiple runs of the Ookla Speedtest app on my phone while connected to LTE from the extender that would fail the most, and all went well! Before the change, running a single speed test would bring down the extender immediately and cause an MME Communications Failure error on the device. It is too soon to tell if this actually fixed the issue, so I will post back if something goes wrong. To others having this issue, please let me know if changing the MTU to 1500 helps!

I'm checking back here after 4+ months since my last post and the issue is still persisting with all 3 extenders at my place of work. Random crashed with MME Communication Failure and device needs to be power cycled to work again. It seems Verizon is still using the same pathetic canned responses. I guess the fact that this thread is nearly 10 pages long should be a wake-up call that THE ISSUE IS ON THEIR END, NOT OURS!!! Push out a fixed firmware ASAP or push out an older version that has been proven to work!

I'm quite disappointed at the lack of educated responses from Verizon. Based on the activity of this thread, it is obvious that this is a widespread issue. I'm contemplating linking this thread to a variety of tech blogs to make this a bit more public unless Verizon fixes this very soon. I've done the factory resets, swapped out a 3rd unit, and same issue remains. There should be no "tweaking" or troubleshooting to have to do on our ends. These devices are essentially plug-and-play and are supposed to JUST WORK.

Hey Verizon support, instead of sending us the same canned responses, can we please get some insight into whether this issue is being worked on? Today I had to disconnect our 2 extenders at work because they keep crashing every day. There is no troubleshooting to do on our parts, this issue is on YOUR END. Please have somebody who isn't copying and pasting please give us some insight on how the company is looking to fixing this issue.

It's an endless cycle of useless help from support on this forum. Power cycling is the only thing that TEMPORARILY fixes the issue. Verizon needs to either fix something on their back end or give us a fully tested and reliable firmware update on our network extenders. The issue is still occuring with both of our extenders at my place of work. It is obvious that this is a widespread issue otherwise I'd be the only person posting here. To Verizon Support, please stop giving us childish troubleshooting steps such as factory resetting or turning the device off and on. We have already tried that and it has not changed anything. It would be nice if somebody from a higher level of support posted something constructive here. The issue is so easy to reproduce, it's not even funny.

I know what you mean. At least we are not alone with this issue and calling its attention to Verizon. It's bad enough that Verizon's "Superior" network is spotty with indoor coverage in many locations, but it's a huge slap in the face when now we can't even rely on the network extenders.

The extender that had the old version automatically updated to the latest firmware on its own. Both extenders run perfectly fine until a heavy load is placed upon either of them. Days can go by and they'll be fine. AS SOON as there is either: A) A large meeting in the office with people who all have Verizon phones B) I run a speed test At the point the extender is heavily loaded, it crashes with MME Communication Failure and has to be power cycled. There is absolutely no more troubleshooting I can do on my end unless you can tell me how to view/extract a debug log.

I swapped positions of both units, even assigned them a static IP and used Level3/Verizon DNS servers (209.244.0.3 / 209.244.0.4) on the network settings, and the same issues occur. I had the extenders up and running all day long. Phone calls worked fine with them. As soon as I ran an OOKLA Speedtest.net while close to each extender, one by one they both crashed. This is not a network issues in my office. Our Comcast Business connection works absolutely perfect. I even checked our web filter to see if anything was being blocked from either extender, and did not find anything. I'm at a loss at this point. All I can do is wait for the next firmware update and hope the issue gets resolved. Otherwise I'll most likely be seeking a full refund of all extenders my company has purchased. This issue needs to be fixed on Verizon's end.

To answer your questions. On the latest firmware, the extender tends to fail with MME Communication Failure roughly once a day or every 2 days. The issue can actually be replicated/triggered. If we have a lot more people than usual in our office with Verizon phones, the extender will crash. If I run the OOKLA Speedtest app. After I run the test, 9 out of 10 times, the extender will instantly fail with MME Communication Failure. To bring the extender back up, I must unplug and plug back in. From my conclusive troubleshooting, it appears the extenders cannot handle being run at full capacity, where this was not an issue in earlier software builds. My proposed solution is for Verizon to roll back the most recent software update, OR to fix this issue in an upcoming update.

I have performed a factory reset on both extenders, each confirming on the screen the factory reset was occurring. One of the extenders has reverted to Software Version : 1.0.0.21 The other extender is still on Software Version : 3.1.1.00 The extender that reverted to the old software has no longer has the issue. The extender that is still on the current software is still exhibiting the same issue, random crashes requiring a power cycle with MME Communication Failure. There is no more troubleshooting to be done on my end. It is PROVEN that this issue is directly related to buggy software in the recent update. Verizon MUST FIX THIS ISSUE ON THEIR END ASAP!!!

This message is shown on the small screen on the 4G LTE Network Extender itself. The exact message is: Out of Service MME Communication Failure As said before, this is affecting 2 network extenders which were bought together about a year ago. They both worked flawlessly for months on end until they were updated to Software Version 3.1.1.00 as shown on the web interface. Ever since then, every single day, one or both of them will go offline with that error. It seems to happen more often if we have a big meeting with many more people than usual in the office. Appears the Extenders are no longer "resilient" to being run at full capacity. We usually have about 15 - 25 people in our office at a given time. Everybody in our office has a Verizon phone through the company. Looking through the capacity logs, on most days, both extenders are not running beyond the threshold. The only thing that fixes this issue is to power cycle the extender.

You're not alone with this issue. I work in an office in Mays Landing, NJ and Verizon LTE signal is relatively weak indoors here since we're in a semi-rural area surrounded by forest. I work in the IT department at my company. We have 2 Verizon 4G LTE Network Extenders (1st gen) set up on both ends of our office set to their lowest power level to prevent the signal bleeding too far outside into the parking lot. Over the past year, there have been ZERO issues. A few weeks ago, both extenders updated their firmware to "Software Version : 3.1.1.00" Ever since then, BOTH of them intermittently stop working with the "MME Communications Error". The only way to fix this is to unplug and plug back in the extender. Furthermore, I can actually trigger the issue. The extender can be up and running, if I run the OOKLA Speedtest app, after the results come in, the extender crashes with the same error. I repeat, this was NOT an issue before the 3.1.1.00 firmware update. This is definitely an issue caused by Verizon's software and must be fixed. I doubt it is a coincidence that not one, but TWO extenders are exhibiting the exact same issue and have become completely unreliable.