Attach to LTE Cat M1 or NB-IoT or toggle between them

[arneme]

When attaching to a LTE network, how do you setup the modem to attach to NB-IoT or Cat M1? Since the AT+URAT is not supported by Sequans modem it is not clear how to do this. Please advise.

[rskoniec]

@arneme There are separate Sequans modem firmwares for CAT-M1 and NB-IoT (https://docs.pycom.io/tutorials/lte/firmware), so it's not possible to have both of these technologies simultaneously and switch beetwen them programmatically.

[arneme]

@rskoniec It would be very surprising if that is the case. I am aware that there is an NB-IoT firmware that needs to be uploaded to the modem but I would expect the Cat M1 and NB-IoT firmwares to both reside on the modem at the same time and that it would be possible programmatically to switch between the two (for firmware upload for example). If Sequans have designed their modem to only support one at a time I do believe they have made a very bad decision. UBlox modems (N4 series) do support the switching between the two and it would be hard to compete with them if this option is missing.

[robert-hh]

@arneme If you look at the response to AT!="showCaps", it shows a status of "1" for both Cat M1 and NB-IoT. That seems to indicate, that both options are supported. There may be a command to switch.

[rskoniec]

@robert-hh Am i missing something? The command:

lte.send_at_cmd('AT!="showCaps"')

shows me: No permission to use the RRC private debug CLI

I'm using CAT-M1 f/w.

[robert-hh]

@rskoniec Try lte.send_at_cmd('AT!="setDbgPerm full"') beforehand

[rskoniec]

@robert-hh Many thanks. :)