MC7354 on Verizon network

Hi,

We have trouble connecting to the Verizon network using MC7354. The firmware on the module is rather old SWI9X51C_05.05.16.02 r21040 so I’m wandering if this is the issue.

We had no problem connecting to Telus and Bell networks using same firmware.

Thank you,
Dmitri Krivchitch

Your timing is uncanny. I’m having this exact same problem and just started a thread for it yesterday as well:
https://forum.sierrawireless.com/t/problems-w-vz-fw-provisioning/8819/1

Also, I’m running firmware SWI9X15C_05.05.58.01

Where are you located? Thanks.

I’m in Canada. We have a customer in the US who is trying to use our system with MC7354. We had absolutely no trouble with Canadian providers, but Verizon seems to be a show stopper.

It is a custom device which further complicates things. Do you know if IMEI of the modem has to be registered with Verizon in order for it to use Verizon SIM card?

Thank you,
Dmitri

I am certain the IMEI is unimportant. I’ve used two different VZ SIMs with three different IMEI’s, provisioned with three different carrier’s firmware (ATT, VZ, and Generic-GSM), and always gotten the same results.

Also, last week I spent an hour on the phone with VZ tech support. I asked about IMEI’s and he said unless there’s been a theft report, it doesn’t matter.

From the tech support’s perspective, if you are getting an IP back from the network, you are good to go. Nor do they have any ability to help dig any deeper. They can tell you retrospectively how much aggregate bandwidth you’ve consumed, but they do not have the ability to inspect packets coming across (or not coming across) in real-time – privacy concerns.

From what I can tell, I suspect the error is something in the firmware that somehow only happens on Verizon towers. If I watch the packet counts from ifconfig, they stop counting after the initial few for the DHCP handshake. Even if I try to send ICMP “pings”, TX count doesn’t even increment. Also, if I am using one of the non-VZ firmware cards, and I am using lowish data rates, everything is fine indefinitely. However, if I load a media heavy web page or try to run speedtest the connection drops with, again, ifconfig’s packet count no longer incrementing. To me that is incredibly suspicious.

Why does non-VZ firmware work at low data rates? Why does VZ firmware not work at any data rate?

One more thing, fwiw, I’m using the Gobi drivers.

HTH.

BTW, what arch and OS are you running? I’m on MIPS running linux 3.4rt.