Provisioning a Monnit 3G Gateway with a Custom APN
In order to use the Monnit 3G Gateway with a carrier with a plan that is not provided by Monnit, you will need to have a SIM with an active data plan that supports M2M communication on the radio band your gateway operates. You will find the steps for provisioning the gateway to a custom APN below.
- Set up an iMonnit account and add the cellular gateway and wireless sensors.
- Obtain and activate a SIM card on your preferred cellular network.
- Open the gateway by unscrewing the 4 screws and removing the top.
- Insert the SIM card into the SIM holder (gold contacts face down).
- Before powering on the gateway, follow the instructions below to configure the cellular gateway.
The bands supported by Monnit’s 3G Gateways are listed below.
Monnit 3G North America Gateway: (B5, B2, B4) which is 800/850, 1700, 1900 MHz
Monnit 3G International Gateway: (B5, B8, B1) 800/850, 900, 2100 MHz
Configuring the Cellular Gateway
Once the SIM card is placed, use a cell phone to compose a text message using the parameters below to configure the cellular gateway and send it to the mobile number of the device. Obtain the configuration information from the cellular carrier that provided the SIM card.
Host address and host port are specific to iMonnit; if you are planning on using our cloud services or it is specific to your server if you are not. The example information from the table below are required for those two fields, but they are pre-programmed so it is not necessary to include them in the text, only include them if you need to change them to point to your server. The format of the text message must have the parameter name followed by a colon followed by the network-specific data and ended with a semicolon. One text message can include only one parameter or all parameters. It is recommended to only send those parameters that need configuring and leave the rest alone. Spaces and carriage returns are ignored. The parameters are NOT case sensitive.
Important: you do not need to include any configurations which do not need to be changed from the default configuration. For example, if your gateway is intended to operate with the iMonnit Online Portal, you do not need to include configurations for DNS, Poll Interval, Host address, Host port, etc. Therefore, if you are simply configuring a gateway to communicate with a cellular network that requires only the APN be provided for the example Telefonica network, your SMS message would contain only the following text:
Apn:m2mkit.telefonica.com;
Note: default configurations are maintained for all other configurations that are not included in the SMS.
APN Configuration Parameters
| Field Name | Description | Parameter Style | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cellular Access Point Name | Name of M2M network assigned by provider | Apn: name here; | Apn:m2mkit.telefonica.com; |
| Username | Required by some networks | User: username; | User:datauser; |
| Password | Required by some networks | Pass: password; | Pass: 1234; |
| DNS setting | Assigns the DNS. | Dns: dns; | Dns: 8.8.8.8; |
| Poll interval | Gateway polling for Monnit commands | Poll: pollrate; | Poll:30; |
| Host address | Destination server, default sensorsgateway.com | Host: address; | Host:sensorsgateway.com; |
| Host port | Port over which data is delivered, default 3000 | Port: port; | Port: 3000; |
Once the text message is composed, send it to the phone number associated with the SIM card.
Note: the SIM card must have an associated phone number where it can receive the provisioning SMS message. This is part of the M2M requirement.
- Attach the provided cellular gateway antennas.
- Plug in the gateway to power it on.
- The gateway will receive the configuration information via text message and store it in memory. If the setup process is successful the gateway lights will turn GREEN as the gateway connects.
The device will send a response text message to the phone that was used to send the configuration.
If no confirmation is received, you will work with your carrier to determine if the plan supports M2M and that the phone number is correct and assigned to the SIM.
If unsuccessful, the lights will not turn green. If this happens, repeat the process by unplugging the gateway, sending a new configuration text message to the device and plugging in the cellular gateway again.