I really wanted to love this device but considering that it doesn’t do two things I bought it for (WireGuard VPN and LTE connection) I’m tempted to return it soon.
Here is input data:
Modem name: EP06ELAR02A03M4G
Firmware 3.023 (Compile Time 2019-05-13 15:41:06)
Tested it with two SIM cards:
Google Fi (router says it connects to T-Mobile but not sure if it’s true)
Unlimited data EE Mobile (UK)
Both SIM card seem to be connecting to mobile network because the moment I inserted just purchased EE SIM I received text messages that I was able to see in MiFI Web Interface.
3G/4G LED on the device never lights green. Also in web interface it switches between showing that it has 4G connection to not showing that. Here are screenshots:
uqmi (from upstream openwrt) is fairly brittle, and I’ve had issues with modems that the maintainer hasn’t tested against.
(QMI is not strongly documented, and is a Qualcomm proprietary protocol)
qualcomm devices usually support at least two TTY devices - one for AT commands and data, and the other for debug/tracing for the modem internals - for QMI based device, you should also see a CDC-WDM device, which is the QMI interface.
Things that can be handy to debug a new device…
usbtools
minicom
I usually recommend to most to stick to the modems that have been tested and known to work - for Quectel, obviously the EC25 is a good choice.
Good luck with it - also consider the SIM card, the APN for the carrier, and the related settings for the account attached to the SIM
FWIW - my issues with Quectel are well beyond the scope of the forums here, and I’d rather not get into it.
I had similar problems with a pay monthly unlimited data EE sim card which would not connect using QMI and had to shift to 4G-PPP to get it working at all. I think I may now be stuck on 3G service as a result!!! Not sure at all about that. Its running between 3 - 5Mbit/s
A PAYG EE sim worked on QMI and ran at between 4Mbit/s and 25mbit/s in situ.
I am chasing that connection protocol disparity between the two account types with EE tech support.