RAK13101 (MC20) stuck on roaming operator

Hello,

On IoT module, we are using RAK3172+RAK19007
And we were using an external GSM module (SimCOM A7670E) connected through UART1.
Then we decide to switch to RAK13101 (Quectel MC20)

Initialisation of the module is OK and we can communicate with the Quectel MC20 through AT command :

ATI
Quectel_Ltd
Quectel_MC20
Revision: MC20CER01A04
OK

We are based on Switzerland, with a SIM Card of “Salt” operator.

With this SIM card, when sending a AT+COPS=? command we got :

On SimCOM modem :

AT+COPS=?
+COPS: (2,"Salt","Salt","22803",7),(1,"Orange F","Orange","20801",0),(1,"F SFR","SFR","20810",0),(1,"Sunrise","Sunrise","22802",7),(1,"Swisscom","Swisscom","22801",7),,(0,1,2,3,4),(0,1,2)

On RAK13101 :

AT+COPS=?
+COPS: (1,"20801","20801","20801"),(1,"SFR","SFR","20810"),(1,"Bouygues Telecom","BYTEL","20820"),,(0-4),(0-2)

it displaying only roaming (France) operator

And we cannot register to home network (salt) with the MC20 modem.

 AT+CREG?
 +CREG: 0,5
AT+CPOL?
+CPOL: 1,2,"20801"
+CPOL: 2,2,"29502"
 AT+QENG=2
 +QENG: 0,208,01,510b,2321,10,39,-96,56,56,5,0,x,x,x,x,x,x,x

(of course, we are at the same location, with the same antenna for testing those 2 modules)

Do you have any ideas about the reason of this limitation ?
Is there any settings to set on MC20 modem to allow Switzerland operator ?

Hello @databird

from the documentation I understand that the MC20 only supports GSM/GPRS. See here: WisBlock RAK13101 GSM/GPRS Module

And all three provider in Switzerland have turned off GSM/GPRS by now. See here.

So, no, I don’t think the MC20 can be used with Swiss operators.

Thanks
Felix

Ohhh noooo, seriously!
I didn’t mention that RAK13101 was only for 2G/3G (GSM/GPRS)…
And for sure it’s off in Switzerland.

Is there any RAK WisBlock alternative for 4G support (not NB-IoT) ?
Can we desolder the MC20 and change Quectel chip to support 4G ?

At this time we do not have any WisBlock module that supports 4G.
As far as I know there is no pin-compatible module from Quectel that could be used to replace the MC20.