1: Set-up your devkit

For sending your first Hello World on NB-IoT you can use an embedded developer kit (devkit). Devkits are available for all NB-IoT modules from different manufactures such as Quectel or ublox.

Telekom has a device certification program to make sure you have the best experience with our network. A list of certified devices can be found here: https://iotcreators.iotsolutionoptimizer.com/hardware

📘

You find the NB-IoT modules "Low Power Wider Area" at the bottom of the page of Telekom certified hardware (https://iotcreators.iotsolutionoptimizer.com/hardware).

📘

AT - OK

The next part of the tutorial expects access to the AT command interface of the modem. Some devkits can only access this interface through an microcontroller (MCU) present on the devkit. The microcontroller in this case should run an application to enable access. This type of application is called a "serial pass-trough" application and can often be found in the example libraries.

Please refer to the documentation of your devkit

To help developers start with the NB-IoT module BC66 from Quectel, the company
supplies the development board BC66-TE-B for testing and learning (see images below).
BC66-TE-B is Arduino-kompatibel and can be used either standalone or with a STM32 Nucleo-64 development board.

Links for BC66

How to access BC66-T-BE DVK from my computer?

Enable your computer with "serial via USB"
To enable your windows box to with "serial via USB" you can install the required drivers from https://www.exar.com/product/interface/uarts/usb-uarts/xr21v1412.
If you work with a standard Linux distribution such as Ubuntu it shouldn't be neccessary to install additional drivers to the OS. As soon you plug in the device cable into the USB port of your computer a device file such as /dev/ttypUSB0 should appear in your file system.

Connect the antenna with the device. (the device shouldn't be connected via USB)

Insert NB-IoT SIM card into the card slot of the device. (the device shouldn't be connected via USB)

Connect the device with your computer via "serial" USB cable and get access with terminal program.

After you connected the device with the computer via the USB cable the device is set under power and a red LED is shining.

📘

After the device is initially hooked and powered up it is in a "switched off" status.

To get console access to the device you can use terminal program such as putty (for windows) or screen (on Linux: $ screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200).

📘

Linux

In case you have any problems to access the device file /dev/ttyUSB0 because you don't have enough access privilages for this file execute the following command

$ sudo usermod -a -G dialout

After you connected to the device with your terminal program it is in the status "switched off" and you will see no output (black terminal screen).

To switch on the device press the "on/off" button on the device (see image above).

As response you see the following output on the console:

F1: 0000 0000
V0: 0000 0000 [0001]
00: 0006 000C
01: 0000 0000
U0: 0000 0001 [0000]
T0: 0000 00B4
Leaving the BROM

By default the device falls asleep after some seconds. To stop the device from doing so you can input the following AT command.

Deactive auto-sleep: AT+QSCLK=0

AT+QSCLK=0
OK

Now the device stays awake and you can relax.
Next you can activate the echoing of AT commands to simplifie working with your device.

Activate echo of console input: ATE1

ATE1
OK

👍

Congratulations

Now you are ready to play arround with the BC66-T-BE DVK

With the following AT commands you can check some general information about your device.

Display product information: ATI

ATI
Quectel_Ltd
Quectel_BC66
Revision: BC66NBR01A10

OK

Display the IMEI of your device: AT+CGSN=1

AT+CGSN=1 
+CGSN: 867997030586266

OK

Query the code and the description of last error: AT+QIGETERROR

AT+QIGETERROR
+QIGETERROR: 552,invalid parameters

OK