I'm looking into a device with LTE support and ran across the Mikrotik wAP R. A very similar device is already supported, and the miniPCIe LTE card I have claims to have linux support via a standard driver.
What I'm wondering about is how the SIM card slot on this device works and how it interfaces with the LTE card. If it's even supported, how do you use it to authenticate a wireless connection? What interface is it? How does it show up to the OS?
Looks like you're right. According to Wikipedia, part of the electrical interface for mini PCIe:
SIM card for GSM and WCDMA applications (UIM signals on spec.).
And reading the technical docs for my wireless card (a Sierra Wireless AirPrime MC73xx),
The module supports one SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) (1.8 V or 3 V)...The SIM pins provide the connections necessary to interface to a SIM socket located on the host device. Voltage levels over this interface comply with 3GPP standards.
In case anyone's curious, here's the MiniPCIe/SIM pinout:
Name
Pin
Description
SIM contact number
Notes
USIM_PWR
8
SIM voltage
1
Power supply for SIM
USIM_DATA
10
Data I/O
7
Bi-directional SIM data line
USIM_CLK
12
Serial clock
3
Serial clock for SIM data
USIM_RST
14
Reset
2
Active low SIM reset
USIM_GND
Ground
5
USIM_GND is common to module ground
TL;DR: Motherboards supporting LTE cards wire SIM card pins directly to the LTE card over Mini PCIe reserved for a SIM card connection.
In order to use these cards, your motherboard needs a SIM connector, or you need to wire it up some other way. This probably explains LTE cards I saw for sale that said "For Dell only;" they must have used non-standard pins.
AFAIK, the Sierra Wireless cards with Dell branding have some non-standard firmware in them. I've been advised that re-flashing them can be a pain. Based on that, I chose to purchase a new Sierra Wireless module from an authorized component supplier.
The only "gotcha" might be if there is a SIM switch that needs a GPIO level to either enable the SIM connection, or to switch between two (such as on the PCEngines dual-SIM boards).
Edit: The OpenWRT support for wireless cards is reasonably good. QMI would be the first I would try. (Linux_QMI_SDK_04_00_13_Customer_Release_Note_Rev2_0.pdf confirms that the EM/MC73xx support QMI) https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/wwan/ltedongle is a good starting point.
Exactly,that is what I mentioned.
Altough since this only has one PCIE slot and it is primary for LTE it possibly could not require anything special.
I looked into GPL but there are only wAP,wAPG and wAP LTE.
What names do you find in Resources and Routerboard windows in Winbox?
the only difference is that the wap-lte comes with an r11e-lte in the slot and the wap-r comes with an empty minipcie slot
is there any progress on this?
I found a wap-r build in the downloads but the modem I have installed doesnt show up.
what do I have to do to enable the slot so my ep06a will show up?
This reminded me of an issue I had with my modem. I had to tape over the USB 3 pin(s) because of a USB 3 compatibility issue. That caps my thoughput to a theoretical max of 480 Mbps, but I wasn't going to get that from LTE, anyway.
PS C:\Users\c> ssh root@192.168.1.1
The authenticity of host '192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:2Yyb+/lSnLKT+S7lwyHn0RqQmswoPgm58zpIhvYuREY.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.1' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
BusyBox v1.35.0 (2022-09-03 02:55:34 UTC) built-in shell (ash)
_______ ________ __
| |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_
| - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _|
|_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____|
|__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M
-----------------------------------------------------
OpenWrt 22.03.0, r19685-512e76967f
-----------------------------------------------------
=== WARNING! =====================================
There is no root password defined on this device!
Use the "passwd" command to set up a new password
in order to prevent unauthorized SSH logins.
--------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:~# lsusb
-ash: lsusb: not found
root@OpenWrt:~#
lsusb is not installed by default in the wap r image
ok so I went to wireless settings and added a wifi client to my wifi in the wan zone
went to the software page updated lists
typed lsusb into the filter and it says no results