I purchased a new (old stock) BR1 Mini LTE4 HW3. Took it to my favorite campsite which has very poor (but usable) signal.
Saturday, it worked flawlessly - after boot up, it took about 5-10 minutes to lock onto the “right” signal :ATT Band 66 (AWS 1700/2100) with a SINR of about 10dB. Data was flowing at about 10mbps down / 1 mbps up which was very usable. I turned off the power at night.
Sunday: ditto.
Monday morning: powered it on, and it stayed in “Obtaining IP Address” forever. The first time, I waited 90+ minutes. Then I rebooted it, then I changed SIM settings (and changed them back) to kick start it. It never worked.
I was watching closely, and could see this pattern:
- cell bars would go blank
- cell bars would show up (1-3 bars)
- if I clicked the “No IP Address” link, I’d get data showing the details. It was bouncing around among a few different channels (Channel 12, Channel 4, and even Channel 66). SINR was just as good as it was the previous two days.
But it never got out of the “Obtaining IP Address” state.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured out the secret “scroll right” trick to lock the eSIM to a specific carrier/ channel, so I wasn’t able to debug it very well. (And I’m now 100+ miles away).
Any ideas what’s going on?
A theory:
Since it was no longer a weekend, the bands were more crowded, and perhaps ATT has some prioritization rules saying “only allow Peplink eSIMs when it’s not crowded”.
A counter-theory:
However, this was all happening before 6am on a Monday (so the community was largely asleep) and everyone else in the campground had left Sunday night, so I’m not sure this “bandwidth too crowded” theory has much merit.
Hi @soylentgreen,
Can you confirm that the device connection is still on “Obtaining IP Address”?
If it still is, and you’re back in a known working area with a good cellular signal, I would highly suggest starting a ticket with Peplink.
My other thought would be to perform a quick checklist on the device. I use this list for any cellular-related issues I come across.
• Check to ensure all Antennas are attached and tightened.
• Double-check your APN in the device and ensure it matches the carrier information provided.
• Change your health check to a public DNS
• Enable Data roaming
• Ensure that MTU is on 1428 (This is for Cellular only)
• If possible, update to the latest firmware / Cellular Firmware
• Remove the device from IC2 and perform a factory reset (this ensures that no configuration settings from IC2 or applied are interfering).
Please note that these steps only work when you are within Cell tower range and have a strong signal to confirm. You can use Cell Mapper and select your carrier to determine the expected signal strength. Keep in mind that being out of line of sight (LOS) and obstacles in the way can have a significant impact on RF Frequencies.
Hi @cwillett - literally the only thing changed between Saturday & Sunday (working fine) and Monday (not working) was the date. Everything else was physically, electrically and software the same on my end.
Once I drove into stronger signal area, the device eventually got an IP address on its own.
To answer your other questions:
- Antennas were on
- APN is set automatically for a peplink eSIM
- Data roaming is on
- MTU was 1428 (default)
- Both the device, and the cell modem firmware were fully up-to-date
I have been in campgrounds before where Cellular modems (both Peplink and other brands) have trouble picking the best signal, and I have to manually force them to a specific carrier & channel. So this is not exactly new behavior.
What is weird and new to me is that it was working perfectly for two days, then stopped working monday AM.
@soylentgreen,
Being on the cusp of cellular service could explain the poor signal; however, the device disconnecting and not regaining a connection is unusual. I do not have a concrete answer as to why; however, if operations were regained when moving back into an area with a stronger signal, it could be due to a carrier-related issue.
Is it possible that you configured the router when you arrived at the campground for a specific carrier, and it switched to a different one while it was booting on day three (Monday)?
“Obtaining IP” is very vague in terms of connection; it can mean that the device is trying to authenticate with the tower, or that it’s trying to establish the connection, or it could be that the cellular module has yet to connect.
If you’re able to reproduce the problem, I think you have a solid case to bring up to Peplink in regards to a ticket; otherwise, I’m afraid it would be listed as an anomaly.
Respectfully,
CJW