I have been following channel bonding technologies (Peplink, Mushroom Networks and Derejo) since 2013. I changed organizations and convinced the organization to purchase a Max BR1 Pro 5G to support its options in austere areas serviced by varying degrees of stable cellular service instead of deploying 1.2m satellite dishes. The experience has been terrible, exasperated by a lack of real time interactive technical support. Along with our purchase of the hardware, I also had the company purchase eSIM cellular service in anticipation of using the Max without having to procure host nation SIMs. As mentioned earlier the experience has been terrible. The eSIMs have never worked resulting in having to purchase Telkomsel SIMs in Indonesia. Those SIMs only seem to have worked as single paths so I added WiFi from purchased MiFis. The SpeedFusion configures and provides noticeable performance improvement but we have to constantly guess as to when the added SIMs will require plus-ups since we are using the transport for FMV. I have submitted a ticket and exchanged numerous emails with support. Their recommendations have done nothing to resolve my issue and I am yet to speak or work in realtime with a support technician even though we have at least $4000 invested in their products. In one recommendation, I was told to rollback firmware to a version that I am still yet to find. I have spent two hours looking for this recommended firmware and extremely frustrated. Right now I cannot in good conscience recommend purchasing anymore unless Peplink can redeem itself. I am currently in a bad spot as we need to use the hardware in one more location and my workarounds are not going to cut it in the second iteration. Please help!
You mentioned lots of things but it is unclear what you actually need help with.
The esim thing,…? To my knowledge esims were never supported on that device. Do you have a published page that claims its supported? If not its not peplinks fault you didnt read specs.
@James_Lazo Sorry to hear you’ve had a crappy time - none of us need that in our lives.
The BR1 Pro 5G doesn’t have eSIM support at all as far as I’m aware. I’ve only see eSIM mentioned with the MAX adapter. However all is not lost as you can deploy eSIMs on to physical SIMS if you work with the right data partners.
As for getting help - you’re meant to be able to access support via your point of purchase which should have been Peplink partner for an enterprise product like the BR1 Pro 5G. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but I’d be happy to get involved and see if there is anything I can do to get you working in a better way to get you out of this tricky spot you find yourself in.
Send me a private message on here with your email and we’ll see what we can do to get you sorted.
Before purchase the eSIM capability was confirmed with a Peplink Customer Service rep. In fact the representative was the one who recommended purchase the cellular service from Peplink. It is Peplink’s fault that the capability does not work. I would recommend you better familiarize yourself with the products before you comment. Additionally while you claim you are unsure what I need help with you obviously deduced that I need help with getting my eSIMs to work.
@MartinLangmaid thanks for being compassionate towards my issue and I’d like to take you up on your offer of assistance. With respect to the everything about my purchase, capabilities were confirmed and in the case of the Connect service, recommended by a Peplink associate. In the case of eSIMs this question was directly asked about and it was confirmed by Zachary Chow from Peplink. Here is the email excerpt:
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2022 5:21 PM
To:
Cc: The Peplink Team <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: EXTERNAL: Re: [New System Integrator Lead]The Unconventional - United States
Hi Jon,
The Max BR1 Pro 5G should be able to use SpeedFusion Connect LTE without physical SIMs. It has an eSIM made for connecting to our on demand data.
Best,
Zachary Chow
Any recommendations for how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. If it turns out that I have to buy a MAX adapter I would need to know how I can get it in Indonesia. I hope that is not the case because that would mean I was misled and put in a precarious position. Thanks
Here is a copy of the email received from Peplink associate Zachary Chow…
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2022 5:21 PM
To:
Cc: The Peplink Team <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: EXTERNAL: Re: [New System Integrator Lead]The Unconventional - United States
Hi Jon,
The Max BR1 Pro 5G should be able to use SpeedFusion Connect LTE without physical SIMs. It has an eSIM made for connecting to our on demand data.
Best,
Zachary Chow
@James_Lazo, @MartinLangmaid, @erickufrin As it turns out the BR1 Pro 5G does technically have eSIM support through Speedfusion Connect LTE according to SpeedFusion Services
I cannot however confirm how exactly it works, as I have never tried it on any of my BR1 Pro 5G devices myself. I would also check the countries listed to ensure eSIM support is possible there from this actual service. Indonesia was mentioned, so it might need to be confirmed.
Here are directions on how to actually activate the service on your own. Use the this link to get to this location SpeedFusion Services
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Download and update device firmware to special version
BR1 Pro 5G version of this firmware - https://download.peplink.com/firmware/br1c/fw-br1c_hd2d5g-8.2.0s011-build4965.bin
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Login to BR1 Pro 5G device and select “Speedfusion Connect” on the Cellular WAN SIM connection.
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Login to site - SpeedFusion Services From there it will bring up your Speedfusion Cloud and Speedfusion Connect plan options. Image under #4
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Find the BR1 Pro 5G device you are looking for and select the box in the corner, and select “Top Up” at the bottom right.
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From there a new screen will open, and select “Speedfusion Connect LTE” tab at the top.
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Choose whatever plan you are looking for.
Once again I have not tried this myself, but these are technically the steps to activate eSIM support on the Peplink devices that can use them through Speedfusion Connect LTE. I do not believe there is a way to activate your own eSIM cards, but I could be wrong on that.
I’m working on your ticket. We can confirmed the SFC Connect LTE SIM is active for your device. For the connection issue, it can other influences that we still investigating the issue.
We have communicated via the support ticket that you are relocating the device and you will turn on the device for us to check on the issue ^^.
Hi @James_Lazo,
I’m very sorry for any miscommunications on my end and the trouble it’s caused you. If the situation does call for any extra devices, we’ll connect you to one of our partners in Indonesia to get this resolved ASAP.
Best,
Zac
Any update in 2023 on bring your own eSiM? I am unclear whether I would need Peplink MAX Adapter 5G in addition to Pepwave MAX BR2 Pro Dual 5G/Cat-20 Mobile Router… to use eSim from Peplink (their pays as you go service). Sounds like a different version of firmware supports eSim but only for their Speedfusion Conect 5G/LTE service. This starts at 10 GB pay as you go for $100 USD…advantage is pay as you go… disadvantage price per GB. In Canada, support for Rogers, Bell and Telus (3 major telecom companies) is an advantage as coverage maps vary. Pricing for Telus in Canada is approx. $2 USD/GB for a monthly plan by comparison. Challenge is BYOD with Telus, Rogers, Bell…but I have reached out to their business (not consumer) division to see what sort of plan they can offer for a BYOD data only device.
Thanks for the article, it helped me get this setup on a Balance 20X
I see with new firmware 8.4.1 that eSIM Bring your own eSIM is now enabled with SIM
priority 3 in the default configuration. However … is there a way to enable BYOD eSIM without using incontrol2 ? Found this video tutorial of using incontrol 2 but is there another way ?