I am using a BR1 Mini with (2) Verizon SIMs. They are both throttled at 22GB/mo, knocking them down from very fast 4G to slow 3G speeds.
What options are there for the device to automatically switch SIMs at this point?
Selecting “Both SIMs” does not work. It will keep using SIM A even if it is throttled and SIM B is not. I can verify using my Verizon portal.
I noticed recently the option to “Alternate periodically between SIM A Only and SIM B Only.” It seems like that switch can happen once a month (not back again) at a pre-set date. This could potentially help minimize time where the device is utilizing a throttled SIM, but I am looking for that to happen automatically at whatever day in the month throttling occurs.
You can enable the Bandwidth Allowance Monitor for each SIM and that will allow you to set the bandwidth for each SIM independently and have it reset each month on the start date of your billing cycle.
To get to the settings for this, goto your “Dashboard” on the web interface of your BR1, click on “Details” beside your cellular connection and then scroll down to the “Celluar Settings” section and enable “Bandwidth Allowance Monitor”. You can set this independantly for each SIM if you want. See the attached screen shot for an example.
Hi Ted, thanks for the response and the info. I had not played around with that setting, but I think that does exactly what I want.
If I select the “reserve for management traffic” option on SIM A, that means SIM B will become active when the Monthly Allowance on A is reached. I will not select either of the “Action” options on SIM B, because once that one hits the allowance I still want it to function (in whatever capacity it can) until the Start Day is reached. Unfortunately both SIMs have the same start day.
Yes that makes sense. In the case you describe I would make SIM A primary and have the bandwidth allowance monitor enabled for it and not enable the bandwidth allowance monitor on SIM B. That way the BR1 will use SIM A until your data cap is reached and then it will switch to SIM B until the billing cycle date at which point it will switch back to SIM A.
There is another approach that might be of use to your situation.
Assumptions:
You have two SIM cards, with equal allocations (22GB/month), you can draw down both allocations each month, you draw them down equally each day across the month and there is no particular reason to prefer one SIM card over the other.
Tactic for your consideration:
Split the billing period in the middle, and automatically change from one SIM card to the other at that mid-point. For instance, with a billing date of the 21st of each month you could set the following parameters:
This doesn’t work for me on a BR1. I have SIM A at 50% beyond its cap and it still has not switched to SIM B. Am I supposed to also check “Disconnect when usage hits 100% of monthly allowance”?
Hello @vronp,
You can upgrade your device to the current General Release of Firmware 8.0.2
Alternative you can also look into using the latest beta release of firmware 8.1.0 Beta 2
We also recommend checking that you have the newest cellular chipset firmware, to update this, you need to go into “support.cgi” (search forum on how), and select the tool “Update Cellular Firmware”.
Happy to Help,
Marcus
The problem I believe is there is a step missing from the procedure described in this thread. One must check “Disconnect when usage hits 100% of monthly allowance.” for SIM A only. That seems to fix everything for me.
Also, I have the bandwidth allowance monitor turned on for both SIMs. I don’t understand why it was recommended to not turn this on for B.
I will update to 8.02 but my issue is resolved with the changes I described.
