Hi.
I am a systems administrator for a business in Western Australia. We have a fleet of staff in the field, who have been issued ruggedised Windows tablets, which run an in-house developed app, to report back and pick up job and billing information. The tablets are Motion MC-F5M devices, fitted with EM7305s. We use Telstra for mobile data connectivity. Staff in the field are NOT computer professionals.
We have noticed that in some remote locations, we are failing to get connectivity. The city and large regional towns are fine. After some investigation, it seems that the areas we cannot get a connection in are those running 3Gband5 at 850Mhz (some of these locations also have 4Gband28 at 700Mhz, which we do not expect to work). The problem is NOT related to range, most of these small towns have a single Telstra tower either near the town center, or on a nearby hill. Usually the local Telstra tower is clearly visible form any point in town, and cellphones work fine, with 5 bars of signal strength. As best we can tell, the EM7305 is somehow with Telstra’s 3Gband5 towers. A few locations with this problem are Wubin, Mt Magnet, Cue and Meekatharra. For us, we do not require much speed or range, however we do need to be able to reliably send and receive a few hundred KB or so of data in locations that have a Telstra tower.
Has anyone had experience with EM7305s connecting via 3Gband5; can it be confirmed that they work or don’t?
Any suggestions on how to further troubleshoot?