Boron LTE plans for Australia

Hardware
#1

Hi guys,

As you may be aware, Australia is currently decommissioning 3G as most places are extensively covered with 4G and 5G is becoming more prevalent.

I note there are a number of threads on this that are 1.5-2 years old, but the answer essentially seemed to be then that we buy a 3rd party (Telstra) sim and manually reconfigure. Surely, years down the track we should now know whether there are plans to have an AU (or Global) LTE available?

Finally, the B Series LTE Cat1/3G/2G mentions:

The B523 has GA support for Europe today with support for additional international geographies coming later this year.

So, uhh, where is it?

#2

LTE Cat M1 is unlikely to be officially supported outside of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

LTE Cat 1, such as used on the B Series SoM and Tracker SoM/Tracker One will be the recommended solution outside of North America. The B523/T523 do currently work in Australia and New Zealand, however official support will likely occur with slightly different but pin-compatible modules, which is why there has been no announcement.

#3

A global LTE model would be absolutely fine. Looking on the store, there seems to only be Cat M1 Borons available with no global or even Europe models of Cat 1.

The B Series SoM would be ok. Will it work out of the box for AU? If so, I’ll give it a run, as the 3G Borons are continually dying on me anyway (have killed 3 of them now!).

Thanks,

Paul

#4

There is no LTE Cat 1 in the Boron (or Electron) form factor because the Quectel EG91-E (or -EX) modem is too wide to fit in that form-factor.

The B523/T523 is not officially supported in Australia or New Zealand, but it works fine out of the box with the built-in Particle SIM with no special configuration.