em7455, pci-e adapter ,visible sim

[brcisna]

Hello All,

New here,,,

Have searched high and low and can not find a true answer .
Ordered an em7455 Sierra card, pci-e adapter with sim slot
Thinking of signing up for visible wireless , to be used soley for our internet connection.
The em7455 is the dell branded unti and from what have read these can be a challenge to make to a working state,,especially for a newbie to this.
In the end,,,bottom line,, can this combination be made to work,,providing we have decent cell tower signal at our shotgun house?

Thank You

[Didneywhorl]

What is going to be the host device for the modem?

[DDK65JAG]

Simple answer is yes. I've done this with three of the Dell EM7455s. I used the DW5811e/3P10Y versions.
They also were id'd as EM7455/1102424. IIRC, these modems were listed on Zukota's site as being the
most likely to be convertible, others may be more problematic. Two of the three were converted thru
AT commands issued thru a Gl.inet $30 mango travel router loaded with ROOter(GO) firmware, the
third required a Ubuntu distro to uncover the comm port first(instr. again from Zukota). You'll have to
do a lot of reading here on setting the modem firmware to generic & MBIM etc. It was a challenge,
but going from VZ's 3mbps DSL to 80+mbps made it worth it in my case.
Oh, and yes I'm on visible.

Good luck, DDK.

[brcisna]

Hi DDK65JAG,

Thank You for the positive vibes on getting the em7455 to work with visible sim ! I am totally new to this arrangement so am sure will take many late nights to get it to actually work. My modem (from Aliexpress) has been stuck at the inbound USA port for two weeks now. This hasnt happned to me in a long time from Ali..but has happned in the past.
What little i know,,,i bought a pci-e card rather than the more common usb to M.2 adapter setup.It look like a pretty good setup,,from what i can tell.
I may need your help when the modem actually gets here.
I assume you do have to change IMEi to match your phone?
Trying to find out as much as i can to try and cut down on dead time. I have purchased my visible account a week ago,,,

Thanks

[brcisna]

What is going to be the host device for the modem?

This is the pci-e adapter to host the em7455. Looks to be nice build,,although i dont know much about this. Bought it thinking it may be slightly more robust setup,,versus a usb dongle. Was told the built in usb , cable to motherboard will actually interface the em7455. I was under assumption the 1x pci-e slot would do it. My understaning now is the pci-e pins are simply a 'mount' for the board but powered by the supplied usb cable. Havent received the modem yet to get started.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3303608 ... 1093749490

[Didneywhorl]

That's the adapter, host is a windows PC?

Definitely a cool adapter!

[brcisna]

That's the adapter, host is a windows PC?

Definitely a cool adapter!

Opps sorry,,,,,,,,host AKA -- PC,,, Debian Bullseye

[Didneywhorl]

Gotcha! Linux build. Cool!

[DDK65JAG]

No IMEI tomfoolery required.

DDK

[brcisna]

No IMEI tomfoolery required.

DDK

DDk,

Curious you get the same download speed as phone even with no IMEI matched on the em7455 modem? Or is throttled to the'tethered' 5 MB?

I finally ordered a second em7455 modem,,while the slow boat from China gets here to try and get this setup going.


Thank You

[DDK65JAG]

Actually I probably get double the speed thru the EM7455 as my Samsung S8 phone. The modem,
adapters & router are outdoors on a mast 7' below a X-pol, mimo panel antenna. So it receives
a far stronger signal. To be clear, the only thing I do to get those speeds is using TTL/HL values of
65. Now, video streaming is another matter, the only way I know to avoid that limit is with a Netflix
friendly VPN service.

DDK

[brcisna]

DDK65JAG

Do you mind me asking. What firmware did you use to flash your em7455? I am very very green at this deal.
I noticed my 'from CHina' em7455 finally started moving again since it hit the states,it sat in same spot for three weeks,,,:)
As i said earlier am sure,,this will take a lof of wranging under the best of circumstances to get your first setup to actually work,,transparently. Have delt with this stuff too long....

Thanks

[DDK65JAG]

Don't mind at all. However at my age all the details of what I did several months ago are fading.
Let me start by saying, I only use Dell branded EM7455 modems bought on e-bay for $30 or less,
these modems have been removed from Dell laptops. If I recall correctly I didn't have to flash the
modem firmware, there was a generic firmware already in the modem. I used ROOter(GoldenOrb)
firmware on a Gl.inet mango travel router to change from the Dell settings to non-branded, using
AT commands. Your modem could be quite different depending on where it was sourced from.
Previously I made mention of Zukotas site as my source of info, but that site seems to no longer
exist, I'm kicking myself in the butt for not printing it to PDF.

DDK

[brcisna]

DDK65Jag

Got the em7455 finally

The modem got flashed with the autoflash script from DanielEWoods github thing.
I set up a connection in the Modem manager GUI in Debian Bullseye of only entering VSBLINTERNET and nothing else.
In the modem gui it is always showing 'not registered'
When I do a scan for operators in the ModemManager GUI after i actually inserted the active Visible sim one time i did see an additional "Visible" operator. Now i never see this listed as an available operator. On average I see about 9 availaible operators. There is one listed Verizon,with good signal..
Ideas?

[DDK65JAG]

Wish I could help, but I know nothing about modem manager or Debian.

DDK

[Didneywhorl]

I'm not familiar much with modemmanager but....

Set the APN directly on the modem using AT commands

Code: Select all

at+cgdcont=1,"IPV4V6","vsblinternet"

and

Code: Select all

at+cgdcont=3,"IPV4V6","vsblinternet"

Make sure you are in MBIM mode on the modem:

for the 7455:

Code: Select all

at+usbcomp=1,1,1009

ensure you are using the generic firmware image:

Code: Select all

at+impref="GENERIC"

Code: Select all

AT!RESET

Make sure you don't have firmware mismatch:

Code: Select all

at+impref?

power cycle the modem after its all changed.