Particle devices supporting NBiot

Hallo
Just need to know if there is a particle device supporting NBIoT / cat-M2 specs of 3gpp
Thank you

The hardware (u-blox SARA-R410M-02B) on the Boron LTE theoretically supports LTE Cat NB1 (NB IoT) with a third-party SIM card, however it is disabled in software and is not supported.

The E Series LTE, Electron LTE, and B Series B402 SoM have the same limitation, but also do not have a third-party SIM card slot, and the Particle SIM does not support any carriers that use LTE Cat NB1.

None of the devices support LTE Cat M2.

thank you Rick for the quick answer.
is there any reason why it is not supported? are there plans to do it in the close future as far as you know?
thank you
Massimo

There is no plan to support LTE Cat NB1 in the near future. The Particle SIM only supports LTE Cat M1 in the United States (on AT&T), Canada, and Mexico at this time, and all of the supported carriers use LTE Cat M1, not NB1.

Enabling LTE Cat NB1 caused some incompatibilities with LTE Cat M1 networks on the u-blox SARA-R410M-02B, and the slower data rate causes problems with OTA code flashing when using LTE Cat NB1.

In Europe where LTE Cat NB1 is more common, there are also issues with coverage and roaming across LTE Cat NB1 carriers at this time. Instead, we’ll be providing a B Series SoM with LTE Cat 1 in the second half of 2020 for Europe.

i know on issues on coverage, indeed we in Italy have Vodafone that seems to support the standard LTE Cat NB1.
I also see a firmware update of SARA-R410M-02B-01 to add EU operators profiles ( i guess this enables importing B series in EU) but also, as i seem to read, a sort of RAT and BAND selection better controlling. Can’t explain the OTA code flushing issue … ( well i’m not an expert anyway)
Indeed, would it be possible to somehow bypass the sw disabling of NB IoT on Boron coming to EU ?
Thank you again
Massimo

It is possible to issue the AT commands to the modem to reenable LTE Cat NB1 (AT+URAT). However, u-blox modem firmware on currently shipping versions of Particle LTE M1 devices does not have European profiles on it.

It’s difficult to flash u-blox modem software on the Boron because it cannot be done OTA or from the MCU. It can only be done using a set of pads on the bottom side of the Boron that connect to the USB interface of the modem.

thank you rick … i understand it’s a fair issue indeed …

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