I bought the GL-E750-C4 in the US this year and it worked fine in the US using my Google Fi data-only SIM card. Now I get to Italy and that same Google Fi sim is showing up in the Admin Panel as T-Mobile (which is expected), but just below the carrier ID, in orange it says “SIM card not registered”. I fiddled with the Manual Setup and reset the modem a few times: still nothing. If I pop the SIM out and put it in my Android phone, it works. Put it back in the E750: nothing. I’ve tried copying the working APN settings from my phone over to the manual settings in the E750: Still nothing.
I have also tried two Italian SIM cards: one from Wind and one from Iliad. These cards don’t even show a carrier ID on the admin panel. But like the other SIM, they both produce the orange message “SIM card not registered”. If I stick them in my Android phone, they automatically configure and connect to data right away. Stick them back in the E750: Nothing.
Does anybody have any idea what’s going on here? I’m searching all over the internet, including these forums, and finding very little to help me out. I’ve followed other posters in testing out AT Commands, and they seem to produce the desirable results. I’ve updated to the latest firmware, reset the device. But nothing gets my device to accept my SIM card and let me use it as a hotspot.
It has all left me feeling very sad. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.
For different countries/regions you require different Quectel LTE modems to support their main Telco bands. From the Gl.iNet store
Using Region EC25-AF / EP06-A: North America EC25-E / EP06-E: EMEA/APAC/BR EC25-AU: Latin America/Australia/New Zealand EC25-J: Japan EC25-V: America Verizon
For the different bands required/support using the EC25 for example see this document here (for some reason I can’t see Quectel’s site)
Your phone must have global LTE modem in it that supports both US and Europe.
Yep, that’s definitely the issue. On the Amazon product page, the only indication of the regional limitation is the words “for NA only.” Because it’s also described there as “travel-friendly,” It didn’t occur to me to look into whether this was a limitation of the LTE modem instead of, say, the power plug.
Now looking at the product on the Gl.iNet store, I can see that they do sell a global version. I’ve contacted customer support to see what my exchange options are.
The EG25 supports global countries including Japan (which is a bit weird and unique because of one of the bands used for Docom). Note it’s only a Cat 4 modem however compared to the EP06 modems.