Feedback on my new AT&T Fiber BGW620-700 Residential Gateway

bt-rtp

My new AT&T Fiber BGW620-700 Residential Gateway (RG) was installed three weeks ago. I upgraded from BGW-320.

I have 1G fiber service and the fiber wall plate (demarc) is co-located in the RG indoor closet location. The upgrade was painless; the AT&T Technician was done in about 30 minutes.

It is running on software version 5.33.5. A couple of points worth sharing with folks:

Wi-Fi 7 operation requires both the 2.4 and 5 Ghz radios to be enabled for the user device discovery of the 6 Ghz radio, and to connect to it. This is Wi-Fi Industry Standard. (As designed)
If you have a Wi-Fi Extender in use, it also must have both 2.4 & 5 Ghz radios enabled.
I discovered that the TP-Link Wi-Fi Extender in use upstairs, in the home office above the garage, in my 2800 sq ft house, was NO longer needed !!! The Wi-Fi coverage provided by the BGW620 is a significant improvement. As a result, the old Extender was removed. This cleaned up my home RF spectrum – one less source of RF chattiness.
There is currently no way to disable the 2.4 or 5 Ghz radios in the GUI of the BGW620. The Wi-Fi Advanced Configuration option in the BGW620 Web GUI is blocked out. This also limits the selection of WPA2 or WPA3 authentication/encryption protocols per radio. I hope to see that this will be revised & improved in subsequent software releases.
The new BGW620 will load the previous configuration from the prior device that is stored in the AT&T Provisioning Systems. If you have the 2.4 Ghz radio disabled in your old configuration, the BGW640 will boot up with Wi-Fi non-operational, but wired Ethernet connections are operational.
The resolution is to use the Web GUI of the BGW620 to do a Factory Settings Reset of the BGW620, and then after rebooting, use the Web GUI to manually configure your SSID and passphrase. This will be used on each of the 2.4, 5 and 6 Ghz radios. The GUI limits the scope to simple configuration options.
If necessary, a better option is to RE-ENABLE your 2.4 Ghz radio a few days before the upgrade and avoid this issue during the upgrade. It will save time.
There is no option to manually configure Wi-Fi channel selection, channel selection is always automatic.
On the 2.4 Ghz radio, automatic channel selection should be limited to channels 1, 6 and 11 to avoid/prevent RF channel “overlap”. This is an industry “best practice”. I did notice that channel 8 was auto-selected on my BGW620, which overlaps with channels 7 and 9. Not a major issue, however there is no configuration option to manually resolve it.
The 10G-BaseT 10 Gbps interfaces work well at 1 GbE and 10 GbE, auto-neg, etc.
SpeedTest results on Wi-Fi are significantly better (4 to 5x). Depends upon the end user device. I used a new Samsung S25 Ultra and a new Apple iPhone 16 Pro. In testing limited to within my home network, each device achieved greater than a 2x to 3x increase the Wi-Fi up and download speeds with the BGW620. Your speed test results will vary.
(FYI - my Fiber service is 1G and excluded from this specific testing)
The BGW620 Web GUI responsiveness is better and it boots up much faster.
The AT&T Technician is required to train customers on using the AT&T Smart Home Manager app. Its works for the very basic stuff, and for opening trouble tickets without making a phone call which is great ! However, the web GUI of the BGW620 GUI displayed in the app on Smartphone is not very usable and seems error prone due to fat fingers. The fonts and the fields are just too small.

px_eliezer_

bt-rtp

I’m not in AT&T territory but I want to compliment you on your thoughtful and detailed review.

Outstanding!

It really is in the best tradition of what we had on the old DSLR, and hopefully what we will continue to have here on the Broadband Bulletin Forum.

skinnyJM

Thanks for the great write up.

Did the tech connect the fiber to your BGW620 via the Fiber (SC) port or the SFP port?

bt-rtp

SpottedCat

bt-rtp Looks like they’re cost-cutting by not even putting an SFP+ cage on some units? Or is there a cage under that sticker?

bt-rtp

Thanks for your feedback. So far my BGW620-700 has been absolutely 100% flawless. It has also NOT received a single software update since the installation in June. I’m on version 5.33.5. I believe that is a good thing. It’s a very solid product.

alexsaba

Thanks for the detailed write up. Did you have to call and request it ? I thought maybe they’d only install this if you went to the 2Gig of 5Gig plans?

bt-rtp

Below is a snippet of my monthly statement. When I called, I requested an upgrade to the new BGW620. They added All-Fi Pro service to my Internet package and came out a few days later and completed the replacement.

It’s worth it to me. My Internet service and home Wi-Fi operates flawlessly and is very fast. All of my wireless devices are being actively load-balanced across all of the BGW620’s Wi-Fi radio’s (2.4, 5 and 6 Ghz).

SpottedCat

So disappointing how AT&T is preventing users from doing advanced configuration on WiFi. It’s basically telling anyone who wants do to anything even slightly custom that they have to use their own router/access point.

Not that I care much, I already do (with a BGW320). But the least they can do is allow detailed configuration of the WiFi radios. Even if they hide it behind a “This might break everything!” warning.

bt-rtp

SpottedCat - There is a SFP Cage under the black sticker. However, SFP optical transceivers are expensive. Since they are modular, I can imagine that their might be a potential financial loss being avoided by using and connecting directly to the Fiber port, and avoiding the need for the SFP transceiver.

skinnyJM

bt-rtp
And I guess no longer needing a truck roll to have Tech change out SFP transceiver when switching a user from GPON to XGSPON?

bt-rtp

skinnyJM Not sure about that. Can’t predict AT&T outside plant fiber plans . . .

badtlc4

skinnyJM You still need a truck roll to move the connection to the right splitter.

skinnyJM

badtlc4
Correct but I’m talking about going to/inside the customer’s home.

bt-rtp

skinnyJM The AT&T fiber local distribution network uses optical splitters. It is part of the design and it is usually a well designed network. However, increasingly, it is out sourced to third party contractors because the work involves simple math and merely complying with distance rules.

bt-rtp

Update - I just received a download for my BGW620-700. It was initiated at 12:48 PM EST.

Prior version: 5.33.5
New version: 5.34.4

bt-rtp

Update - I received an update for my BGW620-700 to version 5.35.7 on 2/03/2026. I also purchased a new Dell XPS 16 9640 Laptop. Both device end points are equipped with Wi-Fi 7. Below are the results from my Speed Test from Raleigh, NC (RDU) to Atlanta, GA (ATL). Measured at midnight while watching two HD streams.