Connect only to 5G SA

Hi there, I am wanting to connect only to 5G SA and not 5G NSA. Here are the commands I am using:

AT+QNWPREFCFG= “mode_pref”,NR5G

AT+QNWPREFCFG=“nr5g_band”
+QNWPREFCFG: “nr5g_band”,1:2:3:5:7:8:12:20:25:28:38:40:41:48:66:71:77:78:79

AT+QNWPREFCFG=“nr5g_disable_mode”,2

AT+QENG=“servingcell”
+QENG: “servingcell”,“LIMSRV”,“NR5G-SA”,“FDD”,234,20,03214412F,521,-,424130,1,1,-123,-18,-6,0,13

This is a NSA cell - what else do I need to configure to only connect to 5G SA?

Are you sure your network operator (Three UK?) supports SA mode? Some providers only do NSA, or offer SA only on a subset of their towers. Your QENV servingcell output indicates the module is trying to use SA on the n1 band, but not able to successfully connect there (“LIMSRV” - I see the same when trying to force SA connections to certain bands).

I think Three uses n1, n28, and n78, so you could try temporarily reducing your nr5g_band list to just one of these at a time, though they aren’t deployed everywhere, and n78 tends to have very short range. Three likes to do DSS / Dynamic Spectrum Sharing also, where 4G and 5G intermingle on the same bands, which may also be incompatible with SA mode.

Thank you @fetcher for your reply. I am pretty certain Three does not offer SA mode. I was wanting to know why if I use AT+QNWPREFCFG=“nr5g_disable_mode”,2 it still seems to try and use this Three NSA cell? I am also unsure what value the 03214412F cell ID is when this is NSA?

Surely using this command makes NSA disabled?

I want to see only the SA cells in my local area and avoid the NSA ones. Perhaps someone can help me with the commands I require to only attempt to connect to SA.

PS I am using the module without a SIM card.

Have you tried AT+QSCAN to search through all available providers and signals? It might take several minutes to return any results.

Otherwise, when operating without a SIM, I’m not sure how these modules choose which provider to try locking onto. I’ve noticed SIM-less cell phones often just camp on the first reasonably-strong signal they can find, probably designed this way with emergency-calling in mind, and maybe non-phone applications of the Qualcomm chips inherit the same behavior by default?

I think any sort of carrier-aggregation, or assignment of SCC’s is not possible until the UE has successfully registered to a network, so you’ll only see one at a time.