Cisco 899G-LTE with MC7304 chipset performance woes

IoT Modules MC/EM Series
1

Hi People,

I just purchased a Cisco 899G-LTE-GA-K9 router for a backup link should any of our site fibres become cut. It has a Telstra 4G sim card in it, but the performance of it thus far has been pretty woeful.

From what I understand, the MC7304 only supports one of the bands in which Telstra operates on, and it doesn’t support LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation. The most I can seem to get out of it is around 10-15mbps up and down. Cisco TAC have advised me that this is within the acceptable parameters for the device.

Here’s an output of the router where it currently sits… note the 10MHz bandwidth…

tsv-c899g-lte-01#sh cell 0 radio
Radio power mode = ON
LTE Rx Channel Number = 1300
LTE Tx Channel Number = 19300
LTE Band = 3
LTE Bandwidth = 10 MHz
Current RSSI = -63 dBm
Current RSRP = -92 dBm
Current RSRQ = -12 dB
Current SNR = 6.2 dB
Radio Access Technology(RAT) Preference = AUTO
Radio Access Technology(RAT) Selected = LTE

Does anyone know of any tweaks/hacks to milk a little bit extra out of it? Or am I doomed…

I note also that there is a newer chipset out now called the MC7430 which has LTE-A carrier aggregation and supports all of Telstra bands. Does anyone know if this device will work if I put it into the Cisco 899G-LTE-GA-K9 router?

The current flash firmware of the router is an spk file… MC7304_9999999_9902509_05.05.58.00_00_TELSTRA_005.021_000.spk

I’m figuring there may be a firmware available for the other chipset that I can dump in the flash for it to work… I may be ignorant however.

Any ideas?

Regards,
Jordan.

2

Jordan,

Not really the place to support Cisco routers but I will comment on the MC7304 points you make.

  • The firmware you have in the unit is the current recommended version for the MC7304 so it is as good as it gets at the moment (which is pretty good).
  • The 10MHz is what has been assigned to the unit by the operator, nothing that either Cisco or Sierra can do about that.
  • Re the MC7430, it is a completely different unit, chipset, RF front end, etc so no you cannot load MC7430 firmware into an MC7304 and get all of the bands, CA, etc.

If the above means you are doomed then not a lot I can say…

For the 10MHz BW, 10-15MBps is not unreasonable for the uplink but I would have expected more from the down link.

Regards

Matt

3

Thanks for your reply Matt,

Might just have to keep an eye out for the next iteration of Cisco’s lineup with LTE-Advanced based chipsets and go from there. For now, this will do…

Thanks,
Jordan.