5G Datacard

Note

This section is currently for external dongle: Quectel RM500K datacard only.

Suggested Solution for Connecting to 5G Network - RM500K Datacard

Note

Developer needs to buy 5G datacard from 3rd-party supplier. We suggest developer to use Quectel RM500K datacard for 5G solution. It uses MediaTek’s T700 5G chipset.

Important

IoT Yocto has pre-integrated and tested the basic functions of this 5G dongle. The kernel supporting to this dongle has been enabled by default. However, developer still need to integrate a proprietary user space dial-up utility by himself. Please get the user space utility and further support from 3rd-party vendor who sells the dongle. IoT Yocto provides the integration template as a reference in the IoT Yocto BSP.

For more detail information of RM500K module, please contact Quectel or the re-seller. Reference Link: https://www.quectel.com/5g-iot-modules.

Quectel RM500K datacard is an USB 3.0 interface 5G dongle. It uses USB RNDIS interface as the data path to forward data between reference board and 5G MODEM. A pseudo USB TTY interface (usually /dev/ttyUSB5) as the control path to access 5G MODEM via MediaTek’s proprietary MIPC command set.

Kernel Configuration for RM500K Dongle

RM500K 5G dongle uses generic USB serial WWAN driver. The following kernel configuration is required for RM500K 5G dongle. These kernel configurations has been enabled as default in IoT Yocto.

CONFIG_USB_NET_RNDIS_HOST=y
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_WWAN=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_OPTION=m

These kernel settings has been applied to all IoT Yocto platforms in the following kernel configuration template.

https://gitlab.com/mediatek/aiot/rity/meta-rity/-/blob/kirkstone/meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-mtk/usbnet.cfg

How to Integrate User Space Dial-up Utility

IoT Yocto provides an integration recipe template for developer as a reference for this 5G dongle.

https://gitlab.com/mediatek/aiot/rity/meta-rity/-/blob/kirkstone/meta/recipes-connectivity/mipc/mipc.bb

Please request the datasheet and utility from the re-seller or 3rd-party vendor. It is easy to build dial-up utility with this template. Simply replace the following 3 parameters according to the developing environment.

SRC_URI: URI to the repository of the source code is stored.
SRCREV: The commit hash value in the source git repository to be used.
LIC_FILES_CHKSUM: The checksum of the "LICENSE" file you added into source.

If the settings are correct, the dial-up utility sample_datacall_V1.2 and MIPC library should be able to compile with bitbake command.

bitbake mipc

To install dial-up utility into rity-demo-image, simply add mipc in file src/meta-rity/meta/recipes-rity/packagegroups/packagegroup-rity-net.bb. You could also add IMAGE_INSTALL:append = "mipc" in local.conf if you want to apply the change to the local workspace only.

RDEPENDS:${PN} = " \
        networkmanager \
        networkmanager-nmcli \
        iperf3 \
        mipc \
"

Note

Don’t forget to install the dial-up utility by bitbake rity-demo-image after the source codes were compiled successfully.

Important

The actual integration steps may change depends on the firmware and software difference of the dongle. Please get support from the re-seller or 3rd-party vendor, includes datasheet and software updates.

Use Dial-up Utility to Connect the Network

Simply insert the 5G SIM card to the dongle and run command to connect the network. We have sample_datacall_V1.2 in this example.

sample_datacall_V1.2

After the dial-up utility has been launched, it will request user to input the TTY information interactively for sending MIPC commands to access the MODEM.

Please input the device name(ex: /dev/ttyUSB5) : /dev/ttyUSB5

Note

Some SIM card requires PIN CODE to unlock. It requires some customization to the dial-up utility. Please contact the re-seller or 3rd-party vendor for the usage of the corresponding API in MIPC library.

If the connection is succussed, user should be able to ping IPv4 or IPv6 network via ethX interface, which is used by USB RNDIS class driver of this dongle.

Note

The compatibility of IPv4 or IPv6 is depends on the firmware and software updates from the vendors. Please get support from the re-seller or 3rd-party vendor.