4.6 LTE Band Lock

In some rare conditions, such as between two different cell towers, we need to lock the 4G router to works on a specific band to achieve a stable connection or faster speed.

Mobile Data protocol

Note: The below tutorial works for a firmware version greater than EV3117. If you are using a legacy firmware version, please update to the latest version EV3121. You can download and check the upgrade tutorial on https://ezen.link/firmware.

Go to the mobile interface page under "Network > Interfaces" (as the below right side image shows).

The below tutorial is base on the "Mobile Data" protocol. Make sure the router is using the "Mobile Data" on the protocol option.

Verify the Modem

After accessing the router admin, go to "System > Terminal" or use PuTTY to access the SSH terminal.

Firstly use the below command to check the current dialing sequence number of the cellular modem.

mmcli -L

Use the below command to check the working status and supported bands of the mobile modem. The last digital number should be the same as the dialing sequence number on the return value of the last command.

mmcli -m 0

Lock Network Mode

The modem connects to the mobile networks by the configured mode, then choose the network bands which has the strongest signal strength.

For example, the above demo modem use the default mode of allowed 2G, 3G, 4G, preferred: 4G.

We can use the below command to lock the router connects to 4G mode only.

mmcli -m 0 --set-allowed-modes="4g"

If you need to revert the above 4G-only mode to default settings, please use the below command.

mmcli -m 0 --set-allowed-modes="2g|3g|4g" --set-preferred-mode="4g"

Lock 4G-LTE Bands

Before deciding the specific network band, we need to check its signal strength. You can refer to the tutorial to check the signal bands on a mobile phone APP. Field Test 4G Mobile Signal Strength

We can use the below command to lock the band, for example, eutran-1.

mmcli -m 0 --set-current-bands="eutran-1"

We can also lock the router to work on multiple bands. Make sure to use a double quotation mark to define all of the multiple bands with | symbol between each band.

mmcli -m 0 --set-current-bands="eutran-1|eutran-8"

The utran bands are the 3G standard networks, and eutran are the 4G LTE networks.

The set bands command will return a success or failure message, then we use the commandmmcli -m 0 to verify the current working bands.

If the mmcli command returns a failure message, please recheck your input commands, make sure to use the correct format and the band must be supported by the modem. Please run a hard reset by unplugging the power supply to activate the new settings.

If the modem returns inregular value, please try to reboot the router. You can also use mmcli -m 0 --reset to reset the modem settings to the default value.

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