Inseego/Novatel USB800 selecting bands?

Technical Support for Routers
1

First off, thanks for your firmware being able to get the USB800 working right out of the box. Its working flawlessly with no drop outs! Using it on an GL-AR150 with beta 3.100.

At&t tends to push all connections to LTE Band 2 in my area, it gets pretty slow at times. Any way to send AT commands to the USB800? When connected to a PC I can send the following but I don’t understand the hex coding to specify specific bands. Novatel info is really scarce out there.

AT$NWBAND?
$NWBAND: 6c00000

AT$NWBAND=?
$NWBAND: bit definitions
$NWBAND: 00 CDMA2000 Band Class 0, A-System
$NWBAND: 01 CDMA2000 Band Class 0, B-System
$NWBAND: 02 CDMA2000 Band Class 1, all blocks
$NWBAND: 03 CDMA2000 Band Class 2 place holder
$NWBAND: 04 CDMA2000 Band Class 3, A-System
$NWBAND: 05 CDMA2000 Band Class 4, all blocks
$NWBAND: 06 CDMA2000 Band Class 5, all blocks
$NWBAND: 07 GSM DCS band
$NWBAND: 08 GSM Extended GSM (E-GSM) band
$NWBAND: 09 GSM Primary GSM (P-GSM) band
$NWBAND: 10 CDMA2000 Band Class 6
$NWBAND: 11 CDMA2000 Band Class 7
$NWBAND: 12 CDMA2000 Band Class 8
$NWBAND: 13 CDMA2000 Band Class 9
$NWBAND: 14 CDMA2000 Band Class 10
$NWBAND: 15 CDMA2000 Band Class 11
$NWBAND: 16 GSM 450 band
$NWBAND: 17 GSM 480 band
$NWBAND: 18 GSM 750 band
$NWBAND: 19 GSM 850 band
$NWBAND: 20 GSM Band
$NWBAND: 21 GSM PCS band
$NWBAND: 22 WCDMA I IMT 2000 band
$NWBAND: 23 WCDMA II PCS band
$NWBAND: 24 WCDMA III 1700 band
$NWBAND: 25 WCDMA IV 1700 band
$NWBAND: 26 WCDMA V US850 band
$NWBAND: 27 WCDMA VI JAPAN 800 band
$NWBAND: 28 Reserved for BC12/BC14
$NWBAND: 29 Reserved for BC12/BC14
$NWBAND: 30 Reserved
$NWBAND: 31 Reserved

AT$NWBAND2=?
$NWBAND2: bit definitions
$NWBAND2: 00 WLAN US 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 01 WLAN ETSI 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 02 WLAN FRANCE 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 03 WLAN SPAIN 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 04 WLAN JAPAN 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 05 WLAN US 2400 band
$NWBAND2: 06 WLAN EUROPE 5000 band
$NWBAND2: 07 WLAN FRANCE 5000 band
$NWBAND2: 08 WLAN SPAIN 5000 band
$NWBAND2: 09 WLAN JAPAN 5000 band
$NWBAND2: 10 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 11 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 12 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 13 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 14 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 15 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 16 WCDMA EUROPE 2600 band
$NWBAND2: 17 WCDMA EUROPE & JAPAN 900 band
$NWBAND2: 18 WCDMA JAPAN 1700 band
$NWBAND2: 19 Reserved for WLAN
$NWBAND2: 20 Reserved for WLAN
$NWBAND2: 21 Reserved for WLAN
$NWBAND2: 22 Reserved for WLAN
$NWBAND2: 23 Reserved for WLAN
$NWBAND2: 24 Band Class 16
$NWBAND2: 25 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 26 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 27 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 28 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 29 Reserved
$NWBAND2: 30 Persistent value from NV
$NWBAND2: 31 Reserved

2

Would like to help but don’t know how to control USB800.

In our 4G LTE devices we have developed comprehensive tools to control the modem.

3

It’s governed by the SIM card and your rate plan your account is signed up for.

LTE Band 2 is 1.9GHz - and in your area, that might be all that ATT can offer - and probably the best one compared to other spectrum that ATT might have licenses for.

4

I have an app on my phone that lets me turn off various LTE bands and it then can to the next available band. My area has bands 2,5,12,14,17,29,30 and 66 available to my sim. Band 2 with CA is the fastest band available at 2am but not during the hours of 6pm-10pm, during those hours, switching to band 14 gets me double the speeds, band 30 is not as fast 14 but is still significantly faster than band 2 during those hours.

I’m looking to write a script that will allow me to lock out certain bands. Unfortunately I’m having problems figuring out the hex coding Novatel/Inseego uses for coding the bands. It’s different from how Sierra Wireless does it and how Quectel does it. In the past looking through documentation of older discontinued devices has been fruitful but not so in the case of the USB800.

I was hoping GLI programmers may have access to that information. There is not much info available by Googling about Novatel/Inseego hardware. It was a shot in the dark.

Thanks for responding though. The USB800 has been working really well with the 3.100 firmware, no dropouts in two weeks, well non that weren’t user initiated. The beta 3.100 is really stable for a beta. Your firmware has come such a long way since when I bought my first AR150.

5

The modems are capable of many bands perhaps, but at the same time, the SIM card and associated Rateplan attached defines what you can actually access and use.

Just saying.

7

Hey, did you ever figure out a way to do this? I just bought a used USB800 and I want to be able to lock it to band 12 since AT&T seems to push everyone onto band 2 which averages 1-2mbps down while band 12 steadily gives ~50mbps down. Really hoping there’s a way to do this.