Quick update: T-Mobile has been stable on the MC7354 so far. I’m running an OpenVPN UDP/TLS client (not the one built into RouterOS) over the MC7354 and it’s been up and stable for 28 hours now. It’s being health checked every 5 minutes by a monitoring service without any hiccups. Speed is good, 13-17 Mbps both up and down.
My only complaint is the $20/mo this will cost to operate.
I guess I need to find the cheapest tablet that works on Verizon and activate their SIM on that for $10/mo. Unless someone knows of a “connected device” that qualifies for the $5/mo tier? And then what happens if someone else tries to activate a different SIM in the same device? Will mine stop working? Thanks.
Not sure about the $5/mo plan but the Novatel USB551 (was $14 on amazon. not sure now) can be activated on an existing share plan for the $10/month. You can then take the sim card and use it with the MC7354. They both take mini sims. I’ve done this a few times now. The device-sim pairing only matters during activation. Once the sim is activated you can move it anywhere and you can then activate a new sim in the old device.
Same experience here, although I went back to the latest stable release.
I’ve had my PPP/VPN link up with external health checking and it’s been stable for almost a week. Fingers crossed! I still need to activate a Verizon SIM so I can save a few dollars.
I managed to get my MC7354 working on Verizon, but performance is poor compared to T-Mobile. What antennas are you using? I suspect that may be my issue. Thanks.
I’m done with Verizon as far as the MC7354 goes. I needed to add data to my plan and they wouldn’t let me make any changes at all to my plan, either online or via customer support. I had them cancel the line with the MC7354 and bam, I can make account changes again. Back to T-Mobile…
Yeah, I’ve found Verizon a pain to work with but my customer has a national account with them. Their system restrictions make it very difficult to work with the card. Personally, I’ve had no problems with AT&T and this card. I think AT&T and T-Mobile, having GSM based networks, are more used to working in an open environment. Well, a little more open than Verizon anyway.
I believe the NMEA output is on channel 1 and although I’ve been able to get a fix using the AT commands I’ve never been able to get it to stream anything.
I recognize this thread has been dormant for a while but we recently purchased some sierra mc7354b’s to use in our RB912UAG-2HPND. We’ve been able to get working using ppp but the LTE interface is not automatically loading. We’re using the most recent firmware (SWI9X15C_05.05.66.00). We are set to mode 7 as suggested by @kristaps. We are using RouterOS 6.38.5.
I don’t think you can… I’ve got the MC7304 and cannot get LTE to work, only PPP. When I contacted supported, they told me that full LTE is only supported in v7.
This topic is 3 years old, but it is relevant to my current problem. I wanted to use the Sierra MC7354 with Verizon. We have used a lot of MC7354 cads with AT&T, but never Verizon.
So I searched and searched for information and this thread is the most promising (although I have tried a lot of other things from many other sources).
Several posts on this topic indicated working units with Verizon.
This is specific to Verizon in the USA, where I am located.
Here is what I did (I tried this with a BaseBox and a wAP R)
Received a Verizon SIM and activated it in a Verizon USB551L (everything went great and it worked on my laptop)
Mounted the MC7354 in a USB to PCIe interface and connected to my laptop[/list]
Downloaded latest firmware from Sierra and flashed the card (success)
Inserted the Verizon SIM into the USB to PCIe device, connected an LTE antenna and successfully connected to the Internet using the USB/Sierra/SIM combo
Mounted the MC7354 into a Mikrotik wAP R, connected internal antennas, inserted SIIM
Updated Mikrotik to ROS 6.42.6
Executed ‘/sys routerboard usb set type=mini-PCIe’
Got the ppp-out1 interface, configured it with: data channel=2, info channel=2, APN=vzwinternet, dial command=ATDT -the rest I left at defaults
Added a masqurade rule for traffic going out the ppp-out1 interface
Problem:
I watch the logs and I see that I get all the way to “connected”, with an IP address, then 5-15 seconds later, disconnect.
It will keep trying and every 3-6 tries it will get a connect for a short time, then a disconnect.
I think as soon as any data goes out the interface it disconnects (a little bit of a guess)
I have tried different APN (internet, vzwinternet, and )
I tried various dial numbers that were suggested from old posts.
I found a webpage where someone got Verizon working on a R11e-LTE-US - and I have one of those, but specs show it does not support Verizon’s main channel: 13
I am no “expert” on LTE communications, we primarily use it to setup our clients with “fail-over” in case the main ISP fails. And we have always used AT&T up until now.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated. Maybe MC7354 is just not supported anymore…
