Arcadyan KVD21 Gateway vs. Nokia

I had both and currently have the Arcadyan. I did get different performance but I can’t simply say one is better than the other because it all depends on what towers and bands each gateway connects. In my case, primary band was either B2 or B66 while secondary was N41 or N71. On the Nokia I got more B66 and more N71. On Arcadyan I got more B2 and more N41. But here is what my performance is under different bands:

B2 versus B66 - B2 has slightly higher download but B66 has 2-3X faster upload.

N41 versus N71 - N41 has 3-4X higher download speed

The best combination is B66 and N41 which neither Nokia or Arcadyan holds for more than a few hours. I decided to keep the Arcadyan for me because it is far more consistent holding B2 and N41 for up to a week and when it does change to N71, it’s still pretty good and usually switches back to N41 within a couple hours. Nokia on the other hand was like rolling the dice everyday but when everything was perfect, yes it did edge out Arcadyan by 5-10%.

My signal showed Nokia at 3 bars and Arcadyan at 4 bars from the same spot. However, when you look at the cell metrics, the difference was much smaller but even metric is higher on Arcadyan.

Lastly, in a given day the Nokia for me would vary from about 100 mbps to 400 mbps download. Arcadyan shows much more narrow band of 250 mbps to 350 mbps. Both would occasionally hit 420ish but not for long.

Best thing to do is try it out and keep the one that best suits your needs. I don’t upload much so I can live without B66 band so I much prefer the predictability of the Arcadyan.

79AG wrote:

Interesting comments above.   I tried the Nokia, but couldn’t get a good signal (1-2 bars).  My next door neighbor has the Arcadyn system and has 3-4 bars and pretty decent upload/download speeds.   Called the home internet tech support to see if I could get an Arcadyn system to see if it would work better.   After 5 minutes of not getting my question answered by someone I could barely understand, I gave up and hung up.   

Unfortunately I think you get a lot of variation on support calls. If you tried to use reason and logic, try again playing dumb.

Say something like “I went to the TMO store to get help with my home internet because my video is all broken. The guy at the store said something about I have the trashcan and I should get the black box, Arca, cicada. or something like that but it’s a black box. He said it has better ping, bytes, gps, thermo and some other stuff I don’t know anything about so I’m calling to do what he said to do. When will I get this black box?”

If they try asking you questions, just say “yeah I spoke with the guy for over an hour and he sure sounded like he knew what he was doing but this all I can remember so when can I get this black box so I can watch video again?”

I know this isn’t being totally honest, but I’ve found that trying to sound like I’m smarter than a support rep rarely gives me equal or better service then just playing dumb and say “WOW I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!” a few times. It does wonders.

I used the Arcadyan gateway for about 2 weeks but am switching to the Nokia because while the Arcadyan appears to get a stronger internet signal the download time for the Nokia seems to be faster. Also, my Roku TV was not able to see the 5ghz WiFi frequency from the Arcadyan bit can see it from the Nokia. I believe this has something to do with the channel that the Arcadyan automatically assigns. Being able to use the 5ghz frequency allows for a much better resolution on my Roku TV. T-Mobile’s 5G home internet has made it possible for me to finally give up being forced to use Comcast/xfinity as they were the only internet service available to me.   

I used the Nokia model for about 5 months.  The signal strength varied wildly but was workable for me --- although the unit seemed to have problems displaying notification-messages.  I received an Arcadyan replacement model about 4 weeks ago.  The Arcadyan MAY be slightly slower… perhaps 10% to 20% but that is only my gut-feeling.  My SPEEDTEST measurements are affected by far too many variables.  At any rate despite the Arcadyan speed-variations, it is essentially “workable”.  

Stop looking at bars, especially between these two gateways as the arcadyan actually inflates bars.

For example. a -99RSRP is 3 bars on nokia and 4 bars on arcadyan. Same exact signal strength.

Look at RSRQ, SNR/SINR the most.

My analysis of gateways so far, nokia seems to be more reliable for speed but less reliable on connection stability compared to arcadyan. The arcadyan seems to prioritize RSRQ over RSRP and SINR. This improves connection stability but lowers speeds.

For example using same antenna and exact location and swapping between gateways the state difference between the two is this

What do these numbers tell me and actual results. The upload and download were both lower on arcadyan but the ability to prevent connection loss is much better. Although since my metrics were so good, I would have been better with nokia cause I rarely had connection loss. Now if your SNR/SINR is in toilet, you want the arcadyan cause it’ll disconnect less, or at the very least reconnect faster.

But again, I cannot emphasize enough the bars just don’t matter, like at all. On nokia I would pull 250-300Mbit download and 30-50Mbit upload (and this is on n71, not ultra capacity n41). on arcadyan it’s now 150-200Mbit down and 15-30Mbit upload. It’s a sizable speed loss and the main cause is the tanked SINR/SNR on n71 5g band. My guess is this was a direct response of tmobile tweaking software on newer modems due to all the people who don’t have good stats like mine having connection quality issues. 

So TL/DR. If you have great metrics, mainly SNR/SINR, use nokia, if you don’t, use arcadyan. my 2 cents.

I’ve had the Arcadyan for a day now and had the Nokia for 2 weeks before this. I’d say no so far. Nokia was much faster although the Arcadyan shows Excellent signal vs the very good I had with the Nokia. I’m disappointed so far.

FitChiGuy wrote:

I’ve had the Arcadyan for a day now and had the Nokia for 2 weeks before this. I’d say no so far. Nokia was much faster although the Arcadyan shows Excellent signal vs the very good I had with the Nokia. I’m disappointed so far.

I just installed mine, and the tech at tmobile told me that the Nokia is much better and stable, if she can be honest. My download speed with nokia hovers up to 400 while the Arcdyan never went to 98. Its been one day and will observed for another day or so, I am also tryin get more info form other user to see. As of now this is not much of an upgrade. 

Interesting comments above.   I tried the Nokia, but couldn’t get a good signal (1-2 bars).  My next door neighbor has the Arcadyn system and has 3-4 bars and pretty decent upload/download speeds.   Called the home internet tech support to see if I could get an Arcadyn system to see if it would work better.   After 5 minutes of not getting my question answered by someone I could barely understand, I gave up and hung up.   

I am currently setup with the Arcadyan gateway.  I get a good signal to the device but the wifi coverage throughout the house is less than desirable.  I want to use a mesh system to fix the problem but I can’t see a way to turn off the broadcast option on the Arcadyan without looking into hacking options which i don’t want to do.

Does the Nokia gateway give me options to turn off the broadcast and only use the mesh network and would you recommend me making the switch.

Cali Cat wrote:

79AG wrote:

Interesting comments above.   I tried the Nokia, but couldn’t get a good signal (1-2 bars).  My next door neighbor has the Arcadyn system and has 3-4 bars and pretty decent upload/download speeds.   Called the home internet tech support to see if I could get an Arcadyn system to see if it would work better.   After 5 minutes of not getting my question answered by someone I could barely understand, I gave up and hung up.   

Unfortunately I think you get a lot of variation on support calls. If you tried to use reason and logic, try again playing dumb.

Say something like “I went to the TMO store to get help with my home internet because my video is all broken. The guy at the store said something about I have the trashcan and I should get the black box, Arca, cicada. or something like that but it’s a black box. He said it has better ping, bytes, gps, thermo and some other stuff I don’t know anything about so I’m calling to do what he said to do. When will I get this black box?”

If they try asking you questions, just say “yeah I spoke with the guy for over an hour and he sure sounded like he knew what he was doing but this all I can remember so when can I get this black box so I can watch video again?”

I know this isn’t being totally honest, but I’ve found that trying to sound like I’m smarter than a support rep rarely gives me equal or better service then just playing dumb and say “WOW I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!” a few times. It does wonders.

You sir, are an idiot savant. I'm gonna have to try this when I call 👍