Sim Card Germany

[Andy_N.]

@mbeier hi,
we are here(munich) at the same situation and got the same solution with the mqtt broker via wifi now. I was not really able to figure out if a "normal" sim will work. I sent a request to a provider (www.m2m-mobil.de) and asked for compatibility from their sim-cards to Cat-M1 and NB-IoT for development. The contract looks like a normal one, but the name is m2m ?! In their conditions is not clear whether it fits to this kind of Cellularnetwork. When i got an answer with informations, i´m going to let you know.

With which kind of MQTT-Client do you work? Do you use some rdy software/service like io.adafruit.com or did you write your own code? I ask because i´m using the adafruit-thing at the moment but i´m not feeling comfortable with that. When i start writing my own client i always need a pc running catching the data... What is your experience?

Andy

[mbeier]

@andy_n hi,

in our current solution we are working with a self hosted Mosquitto MQTT Broker. The MQTT client is an ESP32 controller (customer device) with the pubsubclient bib, in our field tests its working stable. But after we decided we want LTE connectivity we purchased the PyCom GPy.

On the other end, we have a node js server (mqtt client, web server) wich is also subscribed to the broker, to store values into a database and display them on a website.

Currently we are aiming for CAT-M1 because the data packages of NB-IoT (500kb/month) are too small for us. At the moment we have to transfer ~1MB/month.

Kind regards,
mbeier

[jmarcelino]

Thanks for the discussion, just wanted to add that NB-IoT will not support MQTT because NB-IoT doesn't support TCP protocol, only UDP. Usually in NB-IoT IP-based communication you'll use CoAP to send messages (this will be a separate library in Pycom's firmware)

What does happen is some mobile operators will let you send messages over NB-IoT / CoAP to their network server which you can then pick up over MQTT. Your connection options then are what the operator offers - most offer MQTT, some offer HTTP GET/POST..

More, some operators will only let you communicate using NB-IoT to their network server which you then access by the methods they provide, they don't allow an open UDP channel to the Internet. In that sense it's a bit like LoRa / Sigfox (but without the duty cycle restrictions)

[eilarraza]

hi @andy_n

Did you were able to connect the FiPy to any german operator? We would to test it.

Best Regards

[Andy_N.]

@eilarraza hi,
i didn´t try yet... I wrote to the officiall support from Telecom(https://iot.telekom.com/kontakt/?tx_powermail_pi1[field][selectatopic]=narrowband_iot)to get a sim, but they haven´t answered my two requests.
I hope to get more Informations here in August: https://1nce.com/
and have a try to connect to lte-nb with my GPY.

If you got any information, please let us know.

Best Regads

[robert-hh]

@andy_n 1nce only supplies to commercial customers. So be sure to include the company registration. I also tried to contact T-Com for test cards. No reponse so far. As a company, you can buy Nb-IOT packages at the Telekom Shop or Business Customers sales. The smallest package is 25 SIMs with 500k data volume each, active for 6 months (https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/first-narrowband-iot-service-packages-launched-in-germany-497494). Sounds not overly attractive.

[eilarraza]

hello @andy_n

Last time I visited telekom shop (09 / 2018) and after 4 visits... they offered a 25 SIM packages. Which is of course not Startup friendly at all. Did you have some luck? Best Regards

[robert-hh]

@eilarraza As a company you can try to contact 1nce.com (https://1nce.com/de/) to get a trial package.

[combaindeft]

@jmarcelino

Well, here in Sweden & the Nordics ... Telia allows you to talk to the whole world wide web via their NB-IOT :-)

which is super nice

[mfalkvidd]

@combaindeft can you share any details on the round trip times experienced when using tcp?