I’m currently rocking Sierra MC7455. It’s only a Category 6 LTE modem (specs). Considering replacing it with something more modern:
Any active user of any of these LTE modules? Or of anything above category 6 like Sierra MC 7455?
Haven’t really paid attention, I doubt the mobile carriers here would support the bandwidth/channel allocation for it to make a difference. Hopefully you don’t still need to tape over any edge contacts to make the thing work.
Oh I see the EM series are M.2 cards. So you’d need an adapter to plug them in anyway.
Sorry, no first hand experience with any UMTS/LTE/5G module at all… so nothing I can contribute.
If I am not mistaken that some of the users already use this.
Based on this community page:
https://wiki.turris.cz/doc/en/public/lte-cards
About others, I am not so sure about it.
Anyway, I’m using Quectel EP06, which is LTE category 6 same as yours. But my cellular connection is capped by ISP to 20 Mbps DL, 5 Mbps UP. This I am not using nearly what it is capable of.
Just being curious - when I investigated the situation it seemed like when using the internal SIM-card slot you are bound to USB 2.0-connection which limits the bandwidth between MB and LTE-card to ~30MiB/s / 240 MBit/s. So more than 300 Mbit/s which CAT6 is capable of seems to be wasted. This does not apply if you go with a M.2-card or an USB 3.0 card (each including SIM card slots).
Or am I mistaken?
I’d be really happy if I was reaching 240 mbit. I don’t, it’s 10-20 mbit for me.
Category 20 offers more bands, as well as better carrier aggregation. When you live in a rural area, this may be a difference between 20 mbit and 200 mbit.
So from my perspective, I don’t care about USB protocol limitations. I care about getting more bands and more CA, and the only way to do it is with a better LTE module.
Did you make any progress with this project?
I haven’t pulled a trigger and acquired a new modem based on uncertainty around AT&T. There’s been rumors that they would start kicking all “unauthorized” modems off their network, and that includes Sierra modules. While this hasn’t happened yet, two Internet resellers (Ubifi and 4gltewifi) were killed by AT&T in the last couple months. Given this uncertainty, I’m not really fond of spending $300-$500 on an LTE modem that may turn out to be useless in a matter of months. 