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New Member

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4 Messages

Saturday, February 6th, 2021 6:01 AM

AT&T 5268ac router constantly dropping connection when Cisco AnyConnect VPN is running on my Windows 10 PC.

About 2 months ago, I suddenly found my VPN connection became unstable. I had to work from home since the pandemic began, but the network was okay under about 2 months. In recent weeks, the connection got dropped off every 2 to 3 minutes, and it will reconnected after about 10~15 seconds. It's SO annoying.

After talking to my company remote IT support team, they can't do anything. I then began to recall what had happened to cause this issue. I remembered about 2 months ago, I replaced my old 5268ac router with a new one of the same model. And when installing the new box, the software asked me whether I want to consolidate the two bands (2.4HGz & 5Ghz) into the same SSID, saying that it will help efficiency and provide a more stable connections for all devices. So I did. Could that be the problem.

After talking to my company's IT team, I had no other choice but to try to revert the setting. I googled the way how to do it, and did it. And low and behold, my problem was resolved! My VPN connection became stable again.

Does anyone have similar experience? I hope this article helped you as well. 

It was actually nerve wracking when I reverting the bands back to two different SSID, the config page actually warned me not to do that, because "the combined SSID is an new innovative way to help improve the connectivity. Removing it may cause undesirable consequences...".

Accepted Solution

ACE - Expert

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34.6K Messages

3 years ago

Yes, the Wi-Fi hardware and software in your laptop can't keep up connections through switching between frequencies all the time.  If you need a steady connection (as you do with a VPN), the "band steering" function is not for you.  Neither is automatic channel selection; lock that puppy down.

Yes, the dire warnings about turning off band steering are overblown and irritating.

Of course, if you really want a rock solid connection, use solid core Ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi.

Accepted Solution

New Member

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4 Messages

3 years ago

It still doesn't work very well. Even after going back to original setting, it still drop connection every 2 to 3 minutes. Very annoying.

I happened to visit South Cal last week, to my surprise, the hotel's wifi is more stable than my AT&T wifi at home. Such is the situation we are in, touting and suffering from the advance of technology.

Accepted Solution

New Member

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4 Messages

3 years ago

Update: I have a rental house which the tenants have left, so I moved in and did some experiment with my wifi issue. My experiment is simple, I choose Xfinity internet service and its wifi router. And here's the experiment result:

Xfinity works perfectly. No drop of VPN connections, very very few drop of the internet connections. Overall speed is also very good (though I don't care about this, it's a matter of how much you want to pay).

It's a shame! I love AT&T TV/DVR service, but because of the wifi issue, I will switch to Infinity.

Community Support

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230.4K Messages

3 years ago

We are here to help, @maxkiang_sjc.

 

Thank you to @JefferMC for the useful information.

 

Thank you for updating us about your VPN working, and we are happy it is running smoothly.

 

If you have any other questions or concerns in the future, feel free to r each back out.

 

Thank you for choosing AT&T.

 

Marc, AT&T Community Specialist

New Member

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4 Messages

3 years ago

I have been taught by AT&T how to reboot my wifi router for 10 times so far, either by a human or by a machine. What an experience!!

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