We know Telstra has 1.4 million customers using 4G for mobile broadband. We also know some of them aren’t very happy right now. A botched network upgrade and support patch rollout has meant many people haven’t been able to use their wireless hotspots in the last two days. If that’s happened to you, here’s how to (possibly) fix it.
Telstra’s crowd support page features several accounts from users experiencing problems with the Advanced 4G standalone hotspot (the Netgear Aircard 782S and 782F models) in recent days. The problems include the hotspots becoming stuck on a software update cycle that never ends, or randomly switching off and rebooting every few minutes.
I encountered both problems myself with one of these devices. One post on the forum suggests the problem was a network issue, rather than a device software problem, and that an update could take more than 48 hours to roll out.
Telstra’s Twitter support account says that the network issues relating to the hotspot have now been fixed, but you’ll also need to perform a power cycle to get it working again. To do this, power it down, remove the battery, leave it out for at least 5 seconds, and then reinsert it and power the device on. Note that if your device has become stuck in a reboot or update loop, you’ll need to remove the battery to escape that and then power it up and power it down again.
This fix didn’t actually work for me straight away, so you might need to try it more than once. If it persists, Telstra suggests calling its support line — good luck with that. If readers have encountered similar issues or have other advice, let’s hear it in the comments.
Update: My device just rebooted itself, again. It’s not as annoying as when it was happening every three minutes, but it looks like Telstra still has some work to do.
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