Wireless Joint

All,

I'm slamming my head against a proverbial brick wall and hoping someone can provide some assistance.

I have a 1608 running GoldenOrb_2021-03-25, a Quectel EM160R-GL, and a new AT&T post-paid hotspot account ($55/100GB).

To get this far I reloaded the firmware and only set the time/APN.

Connecting everything up I can see the modem connect and get an IP address, but upon trying to browse I get an AT&T message within my browser: "AT&T Free Msg: It looks like you want to use data but have none available. You may need to add a data package or change to a plan that supports data for your device. To check your plan and manage your account, login to att.com/myprepaid." I reached out to AT&T, and they swear everything on their side is good and I just need to buy one of their hotspot devices.

Below is the Modem>Network Status page: Thank you!

Hey, welcome to the forum!

Network = WCDMA.

Your not getting LTE.

CSQ = 61, 51% signal strength. Not good signal there.

Set the em160 to LTE only.

Which APN does your hotspot device use? Are you using that APN? It may not be 'broadband'


Do you have verified LTE signal where you are placing your router?

Also, I know you're hiding it, but is the SIM phone number info getting filled in?

Thank you for the responses!

This is in an RV that will be moving fairly regularly so I wasn’t too terribly concerned with the the signal strength as within a few weeks I’ll be in a completely different area. That said I certainly don’t want to be stuck on 3G!

My phone on AT&T at the same spot as the router gets LTE at 2-3 bars.

I had not entered the SIM phone number, and it is not auto populating.

AT&T gave me no info on APN at all, so all I’ve tried is broadband and nxtgenphone, the two that I am aware of that they use. How can I find what I *should* be using?

I won’t be back to the device until later tonight but will try your suggestions as soon as I can.

Thank you again!

The SIM phone number auto populates only once connected to the network.

Where are you entering the APN? Show me the screen.


Also show me the output from the command:

After setting LTE it appears it won't connect at all; signal information remains blank and I get the following repeating in the logs: Here is where I define the apn. I have also tried within network>interfaces with the same lack of results. You mentioned signal strength earlier; with my iPhone XS sitting on top of the router I am getting 4-5bars of LTE.

Results of the AT+CGDCONT? command: Thank you again!

broadband or BROADBAND not Broadband.

All lowercase or all caps.

That might not be the issue, but it might.

Just tried both “broadband” and “BROADBAND” with the same results as before; nothing listed under the modem in modem>network status and registration failed lines in the system logs.

What device did you register the account/SIM with?

The em160 IMEI is all they asked for. I didn’t double check that they entered it correctly, so that has been on my mind as well.

Huh, you gave them the em160s imei? Awesome.

Odd that its not responding to broadband as the APN.

Something sounds like they have issues on the account end. You also may want to call them and confirm the appropriate APN for your SIM and account

I’ll have to stop by an att store; when calling in they want to call or text the number associated to the sim to verify who I am, but that obviously isn’t working.

Unfortunately the folks in the store don’t seem to be the most astute...

Thanks again!!

I do not know why it is but AT&T sometimes provisions a hotspot data only sim in certain devices as being 3G (WCDMA or even HSPSA). You will need to contact them to re-provision or (in some cases) send you a new sim. You are not the one at fault it is the automatic system AT&T uses.

I had the same problem with using a data only sim from Red Pocket that runs on AT&T network. Luckily the Red pocket customer service fixed the issue for me and by the next day I had working LTE.

Agreed, I would also guess it is a provisioning issue, more than likely the modem not actually being a supported "tablet" device or something along those lines. Worst case scenario, you may have to find you a '4G' tablet and give them that imei rather than the modem's imei and work from there.

Some updates (and little/no progress):

I stopped by the AT&T store. They couldn't help at all and simply said "everything is setup exactly how it should be. It probably doesn't work because the AT&T hotspot SIM will only ever work with one of the AT&T hotspot devices that we sell here."

Did some troubleshooting on my own.

Insert my AT&T post-paid SIM from my iPhoneXS into the 1608, set APN to "NXTGENPHONE" and reboot, and I'm up and running on LTE.

Insert my AT&T pre-paid SIM into my iPhone. It works, but only on 4G -- no LTE connectivity.

Call AT&T pre-paid support and ask them to verify my account is setup properly to support LTE, as I cannot pull LTE on the SIM. They don't understand how that is possible and I get no where for a while before the call is disconnected.

Going to call them again and hope I get someone a bit more technically minded.
Update: Spoke to 5!!! more agents at AT&T pre-paid support. Each has put me on hold, came back to indicate everything is fine on my account and there is nothing further they can do. Is it possible these plans are truly locked to only the AT&T sold hotspots?

Thanks again everyone!

I have a feeling you are going to go round and round until you swap over to an imei that is a supported device. I have never heard of anyone being able to actually activate the quectel imei and be good to go. Even though they (att rep) did it and say its okay, I would put money on the problem still lies with the imei and provisioning of that imei with a data plan. There are several 'supported' devices, it doesn't necessarily have to be att branded. Easiest way I've found to find a legit imei is to just buy a cheap busted screen att 4g/lte tablet from ebay and activate that imei. That or just generate one, but it's nice to have a valid/legit device to throw the sim in initially to get it up and confirmed working.