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> There's a thriving industry of companies providing fanless ARM based machines either shipping with LTE modems, or with M2 & SIM slots on the board to provide

> There's a thriving industry of companies providing fanless ARM based machines either shipping with LTE modems, or with M2 & SIM slots on the board to provide your own When I did this about 10 years ago we had quite a number to pick from. Build your own was possible. But that was only because of our organization had the capability and expertise to do it. We settled on 3 off the shelf ones. That was dependent on cost and number of I/O the customer was needing. DiY basically is 'first make your own computer with the ARM/MIPS/x86 chipsets' then 'spin your own special firmware for it'. Then 'build your own ground up linux distro or similar with compiler chain and SDK to work with it'. You may be able to get someone to sell/give you a reference layout/SDK. Then after all of that. You are now ready to add in a modem. Also prepare for the certifications of all the mobile networks you want to run on. Plus software for you to interact with the cell modem. Oh also you need to work on getting yourself provisioned correctly in the mobile networks. When you do for five devices it is a couple hours of playing with an API. But you probably want hundreds of them so be prepared for managing that, plus billing. Oh also you need to manage EoL for your parts. Many IoT installations are looking at you hanging around for 10+ years.

astrobe_ 2y ago
> Also prepare for the certifications of all the mobile networks you want to run on AFAIK the modem maker actually does this. You would rather check that the chip is certified for what you need before you buy. > also you need to work on getting yourself provisioned correctly in the mobile networks AFAIK also, this is a service provided by "virtual operators", companies that pass deals with the main operators and provide advanced services for machine-to-machine uses, for instance. But perhaps these didn't exist 10 years ago. Things really started to move where I operate when they EoL'd copper wires.
- jon-wood 2y ago
  Yeah, this is all true in my experience. We buy devices with the appropriate Quectel modem for the region, stick a SIM card in from a provider who has relationships with operators worldwide, then ship it to site. Once it gets given some power the device will connect to whatever mobile network has best signal and call home - we don't actually do a lot of international deployments but even within the country it's hugely useful to have SIMs that will happily roam between all the major operators.

astrobe_ 2y ago

> Also prepare for the certifications of all the mobile networks you want to run on AFAIK the modem maker actually does this. You would rather check that the chip is certified for what you need before you buy. > also you need to work on getting yourself provisioned correctly in the mobile networks AFAIK also, this is a service provided by "virtual operators", companies that pass deals with the main operators and provide advanced services for machine-to-machine uses, for instance. But perhaps these didn't exist 10 years ago. Things really started to move where I operate when they EoL'd copper wires.

jon-wood 2y ago
Yeah, this is all true in my experience. We buy devices with the appropriate Quectel modem for the region, stick a SIM card in from a provider who has relationships with operators worldwide, then ship it to site. Once it gets given some power the device will connect to whatever mobile network has best signal and call home - we don't actually do a lot of international deployments but even within the country it's hugely useful to have SIMs that will happily roam between all the major operators.