3G/LTE cards DIP or QMI -Which is supported by MikroTik

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Want to take advantage of 4G cards and SIM cards installed directly into Mikrotik models.

Don’t want USB type dongles.

But which type of card is required. QMI or DIP (Direct IP) ?

Any help would be much appreciated before I order 100 pieces of the wrong part :slight_smile:

2

I use the Sierra Wireless MC7710 LTE module with a RB912UAG in DIP mode. I’m very happy with the stability compared to a USB dongle especially in weak signal strength conditions…

3

Thanks for that. Can I ask what kind of antennae you use and what sort of pigtail connects to the Sierra card. (I am assuming an antennae is required). I found a MC7785 for 9.95 on Amazon (it only does 3G) but I can’t get it to work.

Also, will OS version 5.26 do the job?

4

The MC7710 uses u.fl connectors on board and I have SMA-u.fl pigtails. An external antenna is connected to the SMA connectors. You need to know what frequency you will use for your cell connection and choose the antenna to match that.

Running ROS6.7 and newest FW03.05.24.00 on the MC7710 so can’t say if 5.26 does the job for sure…

Have you switched the setting from USB to miniPCI-e on ROS?

5

Have not looked at that. Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

Also here is some potentially good info from one of the largest Sierra resellers in North America.
This was sent to me when I asked Sierra directly who I should purchase from in Canada and then I asked about QMI vs DIP…


DirectIP vs. QMI

DirectIP:

  • Independent control of user plane and data plane
    o Different USB interfaces for control vs data
  • Data sessions can be controlled by AT commands
  • Simple to setup a data session (one AT cmd to configure profile, one to trigger data session)
    o User can test manually from a terminal program
  • Currently supports multiple concurrent data sessions (PDP contexts) to host
    o Note: works in HSPA but not fully tested on LTE
  • No support for CDMA (therefore can’t be used with MC7750).
  • No SDK support on MC77xx platforms as we don’t officially support CNS on MC77xx
  • Windows and Linux driver support available

QMI:

  • Control and data planes are multiplexed together
    o Share a single USB interface for control & data
  • Data sessions can only be controlled via QMI protocol
  • Compared to AT cmds, much more complicated to setup a data session as control services need to be initialized before any QMI commands can be sent
    o Need some sort of host program to do this (can’t be done manually)
  • Currently, does not support multiple concurrent data sessions to host
    o QCT has no plans to support but Sierra looking to add this support ourselves
    o May be more complicated than DirectIP due to fact that we will need to split control and data planes for subsequent data sessions (i.e. one control interface for multiple data paths)
  • Supports CDMA (currently only option for MC7750).
  • Supported via QMI SDK in Linux and Windows
  • Windows and Linux driver support available
6

Some experimental knowledge abut the two different firmware packages on Sierrawireless portal:

Just upgraded a couple of MC7710s and did some experiments.

The actual firmware seems to be the same, but the loader is different depending on your Windows machine with which you try to upgrade the modem.
If you have Direct IP drivers (e.g. you have installed the generic Watcher) you need to use the DIP package and if you have QMI drivers on you win, you need the QMI package.

As ROS uses DIP interface so natural choice is the DIP package. Otherwise one needs to use Sierra QMI-DIP switcher to change the mdem mode/identity.

btw. Unfortunately the “MC7710 FW 3.5.24.0” behaves differently than older (SWI9200X_03.05.23.02) and ROS script gets the modem easily locked when there is no signal. See my post on the other topic.