I bought a Telstra WiFi 4GX Advanced III with an AirCard Smart Cradle back in January.

I have had no issues connecting to the 4GX Advanced III's WiFi itself, at all. I can disconnect it from the Smart Cradle and all WiFi devices (Television, desktop PC, laptops, phones) all connect to the Advanced III without an issue. I can turn it off, on again, whatever and the Advanced III works perfectly.

I have however, had countless issues connecting to the WiFi when using the Smart Cradle. My particular constant issue is this:

After countless issues connecting to the WiFi, I plugged the desktop and TV in via cable. These devices now have no issue connecting to the internet.

However I also have a smart phone. If I reboot the Cradle, the smart phone connects and has no problems. In fact all wireless devices connect and have no problems with WiFi whenever the Cradle is rebooted. However, if I leave home (go to work) then return (at lunch time or end of day) my phone struggles to reconnect to the Cradle's Wifi. If I choose settings -> WiFi on my Android phone, I can see the "Netgear 38" SSID but when I touch it to connect, it says "connecting..." and then doesn't.

I can forget network, re-enter the password and I get the same issue. The issue is NOT resolved until I reboot the cradle itself. I've tried setting a static IP in my phone connection settings for the Cradle WiFi Network and still had no luck (although it worked better for a time). I can reset the modem to factory settings and I still get the same issue.

I've disabled 5Ghz and only keep 2.4Ghz on, and no luck. I've tried messing with Fragmentation Length, CTS/RTS Threshold, Airtime Fairness, any and every option I can find and still had no luck. I've even dropped the 2.4 Ghz settings under Basic -> Wireless to "Up to 54 MBps" and still get the same issue.

What I find is that if I look under "Attached Devices" on the router, my phone is listed, however it does not have an IP address. Sometimes it doesn't even show the "Device Name", it will only show "---" for IP Address, Device Name and SSID, and will only have a MAC Address. This happens with all wireless devices that end up having trouble connecting to the WiFi.

Turning the cradle off and on again immediately resolves the issue, and Device Name, IP Address, SSID all show up as normal and the wireless device works normally...

Until my phone walks out of range again and tries to re-connect later. Or I turn the TV off and on again.

For some reason, all I can fathom is that the Cradle is not releasing IP addresses or assigning them correctly for the WiFi network. Is there a firmware update that resolves this issue? I'm running Firmware Version V1.0.0.30_1.0.60

Forum Discussion

DC112A AirCard Smart Cradle - Devices have issues re-connecting to WiFi