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Does PLS8 have an internal TCP/IP stack, similar to PXS8? | Telit Cinterion IoT Developer Community

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sdowns's picture
sdowns

August 14, 2014 - 9:13am, 9616 views

We are in the process of evaluating various M2M solutions for our embedded system. We require global coverage, including remote areas, so are loking for GSM, CDMA and 4G solutions. The PXS8 AT command document has a set of AT commands for TCP connections, but the PLS8 does not. PLS8 seems like an upgrade path for PXS8, so it seems strange that it would not have the TCP/IP stack. Does anyone know if it does?
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Jędrzej Gemalto Moderator's picture
Jędrzej Gemalto...
Aug 14 2014 - 1:09pm
Hello, PLS8 supports GSM/UMTS/LTE and doesn't have embedded TCP/IP stack, whilst PXS8 supports GSM/UMTS/cdma2000 and offers internet services. These two are two different products and PLS8 should not be considered as upgraded version of PXS8. Regards Jedrzej
sdowns's picture
sdowns
Aug 15 2014 - 5:05am
Hi Jedrzej, Thanks for your response. So does this mean there is no easy upgrade path from 3G to 4G modem that has TCP/IP stack internally? By "upgrade" I mean we switch to using a pin and software compatible 4G module in production. It looks like the only 4G modems listed are ALS3 and PLS8.
grzegorz.rutkowski's picture
grzegorz.rutkowski
Aug 18 2014 - 3:34pm
Hello, The reason why there is no internal stack is that 4G products are meant to be fast and using Internet Services when each AT command should have a 100ms delay before the next one and max read size is 1500 bytes can't use the whole potential of 4G. This is why PLS8 and ALS3 have built-in Wireless Cards as one of the USB interfaces which provide high speed internet access. Best Regards, Grzegorz Rutkowski
DAG's picture
DAG
Jul 16 2015 - 12:49pm

Thank you, Grzegorz,

Does it mean that AT commands are not suitable for managing Internet data in the PLS8?

If so, what is the alternative? Does the PLS8 support QMI, for example?

Thanks!

Bartłomiej Gemalto Moderator's picture
Bartłomiej Gema...
Jul 16 2015 - 2:36pm

Hello,

The PLS8 module supports QMI. The provided Connection Manager is actually using QMI to communicate with the module.

Regards,

Bartłomiej

 

DAG's picture
DAG
Aug 18 2015 - 2:16pm

Thank you, Bartłomiej,

I have realized that there are several releases of PLS8-E, at least release 1 and release 2.1.

Do all of them support QMI? Or is QMI a feature only of some releases?

Thanks again!

Michał - Gemalto Moderator's picture
Michał - Gemalt...
Aug 19 2015 - 12:20pm

Hello Dag, 

In rel. 2 QMI was replaced by CDC ECM. Therefor there is no need to support QMI any more. It is not supported.

Best regards,
Michał

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy - if both are frozen.
DAG's picture
DAG
Aug 20 2015 - 8:08pm

That's interesting. When you say "no need to support QMI", do you mean it is really not available at all in rel.2? Or do you mean that it is not recommended (i.e. deprecated)?

I presume you are only supplying now rel.2 PLS8 and the rel.1 PLS8 is discontinued, right?

Finally, could you confirm if both releases (1 and 2) have the same capabilities, other than QMI support? For example, do both releases support GPS? If both are the same hardware, is is possible to upgrade/downgrade to/from rel.2/1 changing the firmware?

Thanks again!

Michał - Gemalto Moderator's picture
Michał - Gemalt...
Aug 21 2015 - 3:15pm

Hi Dag, 

I have made a comment on this here: https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/threads/pls8-documentation-mismatch

Best regards,
Michał

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy - if both are frozen.
DAG's picture
DAG
Aug 21 2015 - 7:17pm

Thanks again, Michał,

The hardware issue and GPS is now clear.

Now, I still don't understand the replacement of QMI for CDC-ECM. If we are using the CDC ECM interface, shall we use AT commands to control the modem, instead of QMI? In an earlier reply in this thread, Gemalto's Grzegorz  commented that AT is not fast enough and cannot get the full potential of this 4G device.

Kind regards.

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