Dear All,
I have a TP-LINK MR6400. I want to change the LTE wireless module.
Which one i can buy with a fair price? is there a list of supported devices?
Thank You
Steven
Does it have a PCIE ? - I took mine out as it only covered the 1800Mhz LTE (B3), the manufacture of the pcie modem would not provide any support.I replaced the pcie modem with a Huawei usb. USB modems have good support under Lede.
Yes it has pcie but id don’t have a usb port to plug the usb. So i decided tk change the woreless module
You need to know which LTE band that your provider uses in your country, you can buy the SIMCOM or HUAWEI. All these devices support USB interface over PCIe which can then be accessed via Lede
or
https://www.avnet.com/shop/emea/products/huawei-m2m-solutions/me909s-120p-fw1-3074457345633903791/
I purchased the bellow, they should work right?
Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card : Qualcomm Wireless Adapter for Lenovo ThinkPad
Gobi3000 Sierra Wireless AirPrime MC8355 PCI-E Card 60Y3257 3G Compatible UNLOCKED LENOVO
Lede has QMI modules which will support the Qualcomm QMI interface protocol. So yes, provided that the modem is picked up when you run LSUSB or DMESG if you check the dmesg logs, You hardware should be listed, once its listed and detected you can then start playing with the configs and setup.
You've got me very interested in the SIMCOM modules now, thanks! It looks like the 7600E-H covers the one of the low-frequency bands that T-Mobile (US) uses (we're too far from the towers for the frequency bands).
I've got the manufacturer's docs, but haven't figured out how it appears as a network device (the serial/AT part is pretty clear). Does it use Linux USB-eth, or something else?
Thanks!
Yes, they should work for some definition of work. But they are from the stone age, and will probably require a bit of hand holding to get running properly on OpenWrt. Not sure anyone has done that before. Note that the Gobi2000 module will need a firmware loader, which I don't think is part of OpenWrt, as well as firmware. It doesn't have enough flash to store the images. See http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Gobi_2000 for details.
You're most likely on your own with this project.
Then there is the question about bands. And possible operator locking, which used to be an issue with those modem generations. All in all, my gut feeling is that you are making this a lot more difficult for yourself by not simply buying one of the more modern modules which lots of users have tested on OpenWrt. And of course one made for your part of the world...
I believe it is a QMI modem based on the discussion here: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libqmi-devel/2017-December/002624.html
But I had totally forgot about that whole issue, and I cannot find anything in the qmi_wwan driver to specifically support it. So I guess Sebastian forgot too. Or didn't figure out a good way. Or maybe he found a solution and I rejected it? I don't remember...
As he notes, the modern Qualcomm chipsets like the MDM9207 need DTR set on the QMI control channel. This issue first surfaced with the MDM9230 based Sierra Wireless MC7455. I really didn't want to maintain a list of quirky devices, so my very first attempt was to just unconditionally enble it. Unfortunately that failed with older modems. Of course. Qualcomm doesn't have to care about backwards driver compatibility. But we do. So SET DTR ended up as a quirk, initially enabled by default for all USB3 modems. Which I thought was a pretty good idea myself, given that no older chipsets supported USB3.
But then came the newer low-cost chipsets like MDM9207 and messed it all up. And we had to add a per-device quirk for every one of them. Which sort of works, since the ID of every device must be added anyway.
But SIMCOM are messier than enything else. Reusing a device ID isn't a good idea in the first place. Reusing an ID for two very different generation modems like the 7230E and the 7600E is an extremely bad idea. It's way over the stupid border. It makes it close to impossible to support bot modems. And we already support the 7230E, so that is not going away.
Given that this is so damn unnecessary and stupid, my recommendation is STAY AWAY! from SIMCOM. Buy a modem from a vendor who at least tries to train the crack-smoking monkeys who seem to be employed as firmware engineers everywhere....
Dooh! 10 minutes too late. At least I got 15% off on today's eBay promotion on my SIM7600E-H SIM7100A "breakout board" (likely the reference hardware design from the docs I've found).
Thanks for the link, I'll look into it once it arrives. At least I know it's not worth starting a data plan on it yet...
The idea now i have 250 tplink modem mr6400. To purchase a new model of modem it will
Be a huge cost for me. I prefer to buy a wireless module fo 20 usd or 30 usd it will be way cheaper for me. I know it will takes time but which witeless module should work 100%?
I took a look at the data-sheets on those modems which linked above, they very slow in terms of download and upload speeds for LTE. I am referring to Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card : Qualcomm Wireless Adapter and Gobi3000 Sierra Wireless AirPrime MC8355 PCI-E Card 60Y3257 3G Compatible.
In my setup I used the PCIE pins 36 (USB_D-), 38 (USB_D+) , GND and Vcc +5v to the usb Modem, I then use a Standard Cheap Huawei Usb Dongle. I stripped the Dongle of the built in antenna and all its casing and soldered it to the Chassis of my Router Board. I did not want to spend $$$ on expensive pcie modems. The solution works perfect for me, I can address the modem via ttyUSB0, and Using the QMI protocol for data transfer. The modem I used was a huawei E398 LTE. The original Modem was an Altair 3100 ALT3100 PCIE card and I could never get faster than 10mb/s download. With my modification I now get 40mb/s from my LTE provider. Altair would not provide support or help with drivers for the modem and said that the modems were designed for exclusive use by their approved vendors. So, hence I went looking for compatible modems. I found Huawei most compatible.
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Cool will check it i just need 140 kba not more but will try and i let you know what i got
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Anyone on this thread know a "decent" LTE modem that covers one or more of bands:
- 5
- 12
- 71
that acts as a modem, not a NAT-ed device?
The Huawei E3372h-510 ("Hilink" mode, unfortunately) would probably work from an RF standpoint, but I can't find the "s" ("stick") version or its firmware to flash that one off the "h" version. The Huawei E3276s-505, when you can find them, are crazy expensive, $100 on aliexpress, $150 and up eBay and elsewhere.
5 and 12 is easy. Most modern (from the last ~2 years or so) modems should do those.
Yes, finding USB sticks that will act as a modem and not a router has become impossible. I can't recommend any because I don't know any "safe" option.
My impression from the ROOter forum is that many use an m.2 or mini-PCIe module with an adapter. Note that the modems always use USB to interface with the host, whether the connector is m.2 or mini-PCIe. So the adapter is pretty simple and inexpensive. But it must include a SIM slot. This will also ensure that the adapter is suitable for LTE modems (m.2 slots come in different variants, so you can't just use any adapter). And you'll of course need antenna pigtails or integrated laptop antennas with the correct connectors: u.FL for mini-PCIe or MHF4 for m.2.
Now, nothing is cheap, and getting something decent below USD 100 can be a problem. But you should be able to get e.g. an EM7455 salvaged from a laptop for USD 50-60, an m.2 adapter with SIM-slot for around USD 15 and antennas for as much as you want to spend 
Searching a bit on eBay, I also see that some sellers offer complete packages with modem (Quectel EC25), adapter and antennas for USD 60 or less. I have no personal experience with that modem, but it is used by many others with OpenWrt so it should be a safe choice. Make sure to buy the version with the bands you need. There are many variants.
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Definitely appreciate the advice! For anyone looking for the Sierra Wireless cards, as a point of reference, DigiKey in the US (commercial component supplier that will typically accept "onesies" orders) has single-quantity, new MC7455 at US$147 and the EM7565 at US$190; neither are stocked and show a 12-week backlog on ordering.
Edit: I'll also be looking to see if a Nexus 5x will charge with USB tethering and if I can modify the OmniROM OS I run to directly expose at least ssh from the tethered device. With "good" units selling on Swappa at below $150, that is looking like a reasonable option.
Guys i had this, when i installed the Qobi 2000
I did the qmi way but it seems i am not able to connectttttt. in QMI thre is something called modem type what is that?
T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=05c6 ProdID=9204 Rev= 0.02
S: Manufacturer=Qualcomm Incorporated
S: Product=Qualcomm Gobi 2000
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=500mA
I:* If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=4ms
lsusb does it show something like Gobi 2000 Wireless Modem
depends on provider, maybe you need to tape or cut the pin 20
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/cf-53-wwan-activation-and-setup.788824/page-3
what about Qobi 3000?
There is in QMI a filed called modem type what i should put there
Good. Now all you are missing is the driver (qcserail), firmware loader (gobi-loader) and firmware....
Didn't I point to http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Gobi_2000 ? Did you read it? No? Why not?
I'll pass now.