Preparing an arbitrary LTE modem for working with a SIM card for a Yota modem using the example of Huawei E3272

The main motivator for creating this article was the fact that in order to restore that small set of steps that will be given a little later, I spent many hours, talked with two Iota representatives and shoveled a million forums, blogs and similar resources (including quite useless a post on a hub on my modem). I hope the text below will save someone time and effort.



Go to the main point. Despite the fact that on the Internet they write that everything should work by itself and right away, in order for your SIM card from a modem (and not a tablet and a smartphone, there’s another story!) To earn iota inside an arbitrary modem, you need to do the following :

1. Unlock the modem if it is tied to the operator (flashing is not required!).
2. Insert a SIM card and make sure that it connects to the base station and enters the Iota network.
   
   • To do this, you need to make sure that there is LTE coverage from iota (3G does not fit!), Here is the coverage map , but the real coverage is more, you need to check on the ground;
   • make sure that the modem works on the iota frequencies of LTE: band-7;
   • and put the modem into 4G mode.
   
   
3. Establish a connection using the correct parameters.

Now in order.

Unlock

The general advice is this: find your modem on w3bsit3-dns.com and follow the instructions there. For the mentioned Huawei E3272 (aka Megaphone M100-4, MTS 824F, 824FT, Beeline E3272), there is medium useful text on this topic on the hub , and in general there is a lot of information on the network, especially in a special branch on w3bsit3-dns.com . I will give a short version of the instruction with my additions.

I prefer to do all of the following operations with AT commands . Under linux (and probably any other unix), this is done according to this instruction , and on windows this .

1. Find out the IMEI of the modem: it is written on it, but you can enter the AT command ATIand copy from there
2. If you are paranoid, like me, then you are collecting a program for generating unlock codes from source codes (and even reading them so that no muck can be launched). If you need simpler, here are binaries and even a web service .
3. A literal quote: “we enter our 15-digit IMEI and click“ Calc ”, in the window the utility will generate our Flash / Unlock codes for us. Flash code is needed to upgrade the modem, Unlock to unlock! In our Huawei E3272 modem, the unlock code is according to a new algorithm, i.e. v201 code . "
4. The instruction says: "We insert the SIM card of another operator, open the modem management program, when requesting the unlock code, enter the received code." Since I am under Linux, and did not understand at all what this “modem management program” is, I just entered the AT command AT^CARDLOCK="Ваш код разблокировки".

Switch to 4G mode

After that, the modem is ready, insert any SIM card and work. But, of course, except for Yota, which will not register your SIM card on the network until the modem is in LTE only mode. The thing is, as they said in Iota:

we generally do not have roaming in Russia and all LTE base stations we have our own. There are 3G stations that are used in conjunction with Megaphone, but this has nothing to do with the modem.

To do this, we will again use the AT command (see the list of commands and their meaning, for example, on w3bsit3-dns.com ). We introduceAT^SYSCFGEX="03",3fffffff,2,4,7fffffffffffffff,,

Correct settings

As suggested by Yota support, for this you need to enter the standard dialer number *99#and enter the access point (APN): internet.yota(for some devices this can also be yota.ru, i.e. you need to check this option too ). Login and password can be left blank.

Actually, that's all. Then you can use the modem, insert it into the router, and enjoy the Internet from Iota. Thanks for attention.