This message only shows up if you are out of reach and not connected to an LTN station. You should be seeing both a Can't reach message and a Not Connected message. If you are within reach you won't see them message and it will open the combinator.
You will also see it in map view if not connected to an LTN station. You can only open the combinator via the map or out of reach when connected to LTN stations. Otherwise the reach rule of regular combinators apply. I suppose it wouldn't be out of the question to allow that modification all the time (via setting). I'll probably add that setting in a future release.