Boron LTE- support

I am having a boron LTE …Is there any possible way of making it connect to cloud in India

It may be possible with a 3rd-party SIM card and carrier that support LTE Cat M1 or NB1. Note that these are special IoT subsets of LTE, and are not the same as the LTE used by your mobile phone.

The instructions are here:

https://docs.particle.io/support/particle-devices-faq/electron-3rdparty-sims/

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You are saying that I can’t use my boron LTE India with an LTE sim. Is there any other possible way to overcome this problem?

Apart from getting a Boron that's supposed to work world wide (2G/3G), I'd say no, that's also why the Boron LTE is explicitly said to only work in the US



(IoT Network Solutions — Products & Services | Particle)

@Loud, as @rickkas7 points out (and supported by @ScruffR), LTE, LTE CAT-M1 and LTE CAT-NBIoT are not the same things and ONLY carriers that support M1 and/or NBIoT will work with the Boron LTE. There is no “trick” to overcome this if the cellular provider is not supporting these services.

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Then I should buy a boron 2G/3G.

At this time, the Boron 2G/3G is recommended outside the US.

While it may be technically possible to use a Boron LTE abroad with a third party SIM if your carriers support CAT M1 or NBIoT, the setup flow is clunky, would require a Particle Ethernet Featherwing, and is not officially supported by Particle at this time.

Ok . thanks

Can anyone give us an update on when the Particle SIM will support outside of the USA?

Hey Wayne,

At this time, there are no timetables as to when the Particle SIM will be supported outside the USA for CAT-M1 LTE. This is due to multiple factors such as CAT-M1 availability outside the US (While we have begun to see it in some areas, it’s still very limited and typically on major cities of certain countries).

Once CAT-M1 LTE is available at a reasonable capacity, our teams will need time to discuss with various MVNOs in order to take care of arrangements.

Since we do not know how long it will take for CAT-M1 to become widely available, nor the duration of time it will take in discussions with various MVNOs–there is no expected timetable at this time.

Sorry about that.

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I'm in Australia and we have very good coverage for both Cat M1 and Cat NB1. Telstra run both networks and I have been using this for 6 months+. Vodafone also run Cat NB1. I have connected to Vodafone too.

It's a missed opportunity!

Hey Wayne,

Certainly something I’ll pass along to our MVNO team. I know we get requests of CAT-M1 in some up and coming regions from time to time. I’ll sure to let them know Australia is waiting! :smile_cat:

Telstra advise that decommissioning of their Australian 3G network will commence in 2020 although it’s not clear how drawn out that process will be.

I am developing an upgrade of my instrument using a Boron 3G but I would certainly prefer to move over to LTE M1 before we start producing a larger number of units for cost-sensitive clinical trials.

I am currently planning on trying out the M2MOne service once I have the device working reliably on Boron 3G. Given their pricing model that may even be a better long term solution but only time and experimentation will tell.

Are the hologram.io SIMs not an interesting alternative?

Hey Ozi,

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve passed your concerns along to our MVNO team.

Both our Electron and Boron series of models do support third party SIMs, so you could consider getting a headstart with the LTE by using third party CAT-M1 SIMs until we have support of CAT-M1 our first party cards outisde the US.

While the setup process is a little roundabout now, it’ll be a lot more direct for our Boron line once we have mesh CLI support (I believe the current ambition for this is end of Q1).

By the way, when using the Particle SIM card, only the Electron and E Series E310 use Telstra in Australia.

The Boron 2G/3G uses Vodafone.

Thanks Rick. That makes it even more likely that I will have to go the third party SIM route. As far as I can tell Vodafone have only enabled NB1 whereas.Telstra have both M1 and NB1 operational.

I intend using this for a real time tele-medicine application transferring data at a 5 Hz rate for sessions of up to 20 minutes duration. I cannot wear the latency which I understand is inherent in NB1.

In the immediate future I will be concentrating on the Photon -> Argon -> Boron 3G transition. I will revisit the LTE issues in a month or two.

Oops I misread your email. 3G via Vodafone is no problem. Although they have in the past had the poorest coverage of the three telco’s in Australia their coverage is improving and won’t be an issue for me in the immediate future.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see a successful / documented implementation of the Hologram SIM in a Boron LTE.

The Hologram SIM / data / SMS capability is critical for my application (Particle has no incoming SMS capability, and the data is more expensive).

I know the Hologram SIM works on Cat-M – I have an Arduino MKR NB 1500, and it connects fine with the same SIM.

I would REALLY like to see the Hologram SIM work on the Boron LTE.

Thanks for reading, and for any suggestions!

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I don’t have any hands on with Hologram SIMs, so unfortunately, I cannot say for certain.

A quick search on the Arduino MKR NB 1500 suggests both CAT-M1 and NB-IoT are supported. Hologram seems to have both as well. So I’ve no real way to no for certain, but my checklist to try and figure this out would be:

  • Update Boron to latest firmware (v0.9.0)

  • Ensure external SIM is specified on Boron LTE

  • Ensure proper APN settings configured for Hologram SIM
    (If continuing to have issues)

  • Attempt configuring the Boron LTE in NB-IoT configuration with Hologram SIM.

I’m not sure how the Arduino MKR NB 1500 is configured, but the NB seems to make me think its primary configuration is NB-IoT. I’m wondering if you only have NB-IoT in your area with Hologram and not CAT M1.

The Boron LTE’s u-blox module does support both CAT-M1 and NB-IoT, but due to some configuration issues causing some long connection times, NB-IoT has been disabled by default in our device OS. It should be possible to reconfigure and enable it through the user firmware, however.