Troubleshooting Carrier Aggregation or 4G+ doesn’t work properly on LTE Advanced Router
This Article Applies to
LTE Advanced Routers, including Archer MR600 and Archer MR500
Problem Description
We have received reports from some of our customers regarding issues with carrier aggregation or 4G+ not functioning correctly after updating to the 1.7.0 firmware on MR600 V2 or on MR600 V3. These issues include 4G+ never working or the 4G+ LED turning on and off every few seconds. While the symptoms may appear similar, the underlying causes could vary. To address these issues, we kindly ask you to follow the instructions in this article to troubleshoot and provide us with detailed information for further analysis.
If you are unfamiliar with carrier aggregation or 4G+, please refer to our guide on What is Carrier Aggregation and how it works on TP-Link LTE Gateway Routers/MiFi?
Troubleshooting Steps
1. Confirm with the ISP which band combinations the SIM card supports, then check if it matches with the LTE Advanced Router. You could check the supported bands and Carrier Aggregation band combinations on the specification page of the product.
Here is Archer MR600 V3 Specification. As you can see, not all combinations are supported, for example, even though it supports 4G band 1 and also band 40, it doesn’t support band 1+band 40 for carrier aggregation.
2. Make sure the band is set to be “Auto” on Advanced->Network->Internet page, then check band information on Advanced->Status page, record the band(s).
Then insert the same SIM card into another LTE Advanced device at the same location and check if it works on 4G+ all the time, if so, check the band as well for comparison.
If you have no other LTE Advanced router, please try your smartphone, and you could refer to How to check the 4G band working on our smartphones to check the band working on your smartphone.
After finding the band combinations working on another device, please try to select 4G bands manually on the TP-Link device and make sure same bands are selected:
How to select 4G band manually on the web interface of LTE Gateway Routers
However, if your another device or phone shows 4G, no 4G+, please contact your ISP.
3. Please try to download large files or run Speed Test to see if TP-Link router will show 4G+, some ISPs might allocate more resources when there is high-traffic operation.
If the above troubleshooting still cannot locate or solve the problem, please leave your comment and provide the following information.
1) Model number, hardware and firmware version of your TP-Link LTE Advanced Router
2) Your country and ISP
3) Detailed problem description, band information on Status page, and you are using auto band or manually selected band
4) Brand & model No., of your another LTE Advanced device. Network Type and Band information on it with the same SIM card at same location.
5) Specifically, do you have XiaoMi phone for comparison?
6) Will 4G+ show up when you download large files or run Speed Test
7) System Log file of TP-Link device, you could save it on Advanced->System Tools->System Log page
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@Hiccups Sadly, I have the V3 router, so there's no firmware to downgrade to. Idk if the V2 firmware would work, but better not brick the device. It really is a firmware issue, I regret buying this router :(
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As @Sporall reported I back revd to 1.6.0 0.9.1 and now get a constant 4g+:
But despite on most occasions getting a carrie (EE) next to the associated bands
It doesnt display the bands correctly:
Occasionally when having 3 and 20 selected it shows 3,3 and others just 3.
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@Sunshine
I have the same issue in India with jio carrier on my Archer MR600 V3.
The thing is Jio supports two band combinations:
- B3,B5
- B40,B40
I tried B3, and B5 combinations which didn't work and I can't even try B40, and B40 combinations since the UI is not allowing me.
I've been scouring the internet for the past 6 hours, and now I stumble upon this thread.
It's beyond maddening! These marketing people at TP-Link are a bunch of charlatans.
They hype up their products like they're some kind of god-mode solution, but in reality, it's all smoke and mirrors.
There are so many damn ifs and buts!
I shelled out a small fortune for this piece of junk, and now I feel like a total sucker.
I could have easily bought a 1500rs 4G USB modem, slapped it onto a mobile adapter, and called it a day.
Why the hell did I waste more than 8000 RS on this device if it only supports one stinking band?
And don't even get me started on TP-Link's incompetence.
I'm a software developer, and I can tell you, it's not just that they're lying in their marketing; it's that they couldn't care less about fixing this issue!
This problem has been plaguing us for the last 3 agonizing years, and what have they done about it?
Absolutely NOTHING!
TP-Link, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Your entire department needs to be axed for not giving a damn about resolving this issue which is Core Feature Of Your Device and has been tormenting us for THREE LONG YEARS!
How can you be so slow and indifferent to your customers' suffering?
It's infuriating beyond words! 😡🤬🤯
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I'm tempted to approach trading standards.
This router is still listed by TP link as a 4g+ router, which it clearly isn't.
I think I'll write to them first to give them a chance to resolve it, but otherwise there are a lot of other people who've purchased this since the issue started who probably don't even realise they're not getting what is advertised.
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@Sunshine This is beyond ridiculous, they don't update the V3 firmware and don't fix the 4G+ issues. My router decides to lose a band one day, the other day it detects it again, some days "no available band" but immediately after a restart it detects them. This router is really bad and their service is terrible. More and more people have this issue and they do nothing about it. A 4G+ router filled with bugs and riddled with bad firmware and TP-Link does nothing. I'm not going to buy anything from them anymore.
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Hi All,
If you have the same issue with your MR600 and another 4G+ device could work stably on 4G+ with the same SIM card at same location, please email support.forum@tp-link.com with the required information mentioned in the original post, our support engineer will continue following up the case.
Thanks a lot for your cooperation!
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@Sunshine I'm not emailing anyone, after your "support engineers" all they do is basic testing, restarting the router, common things us folk have DONE ALREADY for the past three years. It's like talking to a wall.
I'm a literal Software Engineer, and the issue is with the router's firmware, it's bad programming on your part, and it's a terrible product.
Copying and pasting this really pathetic answer and masquerading it as some sort of "solution" is exactly why no one else should buy your horrible products.
All you needed to do was update the firmware for all models of the MR600 and actually understand the issue is on YOUR SIDE. Stop asking people to do basic testing like we're babies, it's shameful and disgraceful, and I wish I didn't give this company a single dime.
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As already stated and correctly so by members on this forum this firmware issue has going on for 3 years with no end in site . The MR600 from V1 to V3 suffers from this intermittant carrier aggregation issue. If you are like me with a V1 with its multitude of beta fixes to correct errors like sms messages not displaying and many other issues and after a major beta fix last year in September is still running on beta firmware and wondering whether there will ever be an official version. To go back to the buggy official last release is not an option as it introduces a whole lot other errors. Its time for this issue to be resolved and I don't blame customers that are starting to use aggressive language. You asked for a name of a router that works properly with carrier aggregation . Here is one its an Huawei B535_235F which works as it should. No beta versions firmware, only official released and working. What I don't understand is why your software engineers cannot sort this out. Logs submitted show the 2 second switching between LTE/LTE + . If you can't sort out carrier aggregation on these units then community stay clear of any proposed 5G units when they are released.
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