Hi,

I have a RB912UAG-2HPnD which I would like to add an mini-pci LTE card. Speed isn't terribly critical but don't want to spent too much. I have a USB dongle which works fine but needs a reboot every week or so. So is there a mini pci-e card I can use that's cheap? This is for australia. I see Mikrotik have one here for about $90 (probably $50 US) which is pretty good but wondering if there's something cheaper, happy with second hand. I was looking at the mc7304 but that was similarly priced second hand.

This is the mikrotik lte card that I was looking at
https://wisp.net.au/r11e-lte-mikrotik.html

If speed isn’t important, just stick with the MikroTik modem or the Quectel EC25-AU — both are Cat4 but the EC25 supports B28 which is handy for Telstra if your local tower has it.

Both are under $100 new. Try eBay/Gumtree for a used modem.

If speed isn’t important, just stick with the MikroTik modem or the Quectel EC25-AU — both are Cat4 but the EC25 supports B28 which is handy for Telstra if your local tower has it.

Both are under $100 new. Try eBay/Gumtree for a used modem.

Thanks, I ordered the EC25, got it for $62 with some eBay discounts.

If speed isn’t important, just stick with the MikroTik modem or the Quectel EC25-AU — both are Cat4 but the EC25 supports B28 which is handy for Telstra if your local tower has it.

Both are under $100 new. Try eBay/Gumtree for a used modem.

So it arrived but it's not giving the results the guide says I should get. For example I get this output. Why is it showing up as android? I'm a bit annoyed I didn't buy the mikrotik card, I presume that would work without having to tape off pins etc.

[admin@BlockRouter] > /system resource usb print
# DEVICE VENDOR NAME SPEED
0 1-0 Linux 3.3.5 ehci_hcd RB400 EHCI 480
1 1-1 Android Android 480

If speed isn’t important, just stick with the MikroTik modem or the Quectel EC25-AU

Actually I got it working, thanks for your help. It appears maybe the EC25 takes a long time to boot up, I'm not sure. But commands that were failing suddenly started working. The taping of the pins was not necessary, that was a wild goose chase based on another thread which was talking about a different modem.

For anyone in the future that finds this post here's my tips:
No need to tape any pins off with this modem
This is the webpage I was following: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Cellular ... ty_details
The modem may show up as "Android", that isn't an issue
You might need to run "/port firmware set ignore-directip-modem=yes" as per this post: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=152951&p=755341&hil ... id#p755341
Give the modem time to boot up, the commands initially failed for me and then suddenly started working
The outputs from the commands in the above guide are the outputs *after they got it working*. I found this very confusing as it was giving different results while setting it up. This caused me to think the modem was faulty or somehow different to the one they were using
The channels they mention of 3 and 2 are correct.
This command may be useful to associate you ppp client with your modem. The string "usb1" comes from the command to list usb devices: "/interface ppp-client set 0 port=usb1"

I have been using this card for a while now and I would say it works very well. One other thing I would add for troubleshooting during setup. I noticed that during setup it was a bit unreliable and would come up with 1 channel sometimes and 5 other times. If you rebooted USB or the mikrotik you would get a different response. Once fully setup though it is rock solid. The conclusion I came to is that when mikrotik isn't configured with an APN then the card is likely spending ages trying to connect to the tower with the wrong APN. This likely causes timeouts when the router tries to talk to it and it comes back with an invalid response. I haven't looked into it further but that is my best guess. The upshot is you just need to power cycle usb a few times or reboot the router.

If speed isn’t important, just stick with the MikroTik modem or the Quectel EC25-AU

Actually I got it working, thanks for your help. It appears maybe the EC25 takes a long time to boot up, I'm not sure. But commands that were failing suddenly started working. The taping of the pins was not necessary, that was a wild goose chase based on another thread which was talking about a different modem.

Can you please explain how you got it working.

i have EC200T-CN , it only shows as android in / system resource usb .
so how do i send at cmd to it .

i opened a topic here.
viewtopic.php?p=901466#p901466

Thanks