RM520N-GL vs RM520N-EU

Hello to all,
I’m stuck to understand what between the two versions I should choose. I found an RM520NGLAP-M20-HP at a pretty good price:


I have read in the gl-inet forum that GLAP variants only work in certain laptops, but I’m not sure if this only relates to their boards or not. I need to connect the module in pcie mode to a board like this and I’m wondering if the above module (or any other GLAP version) will work.

I live in Italy and I saw here in the forum many european users claiming RM520N-GL not able to aggregate bands (system does not allow to post more than one link, the title of the thread is “Carrier aggregation not getting all bands”).
I’m surprised because when I compare GL vs Eu, the latter seems much more limited:

RM520N-GL Frequency Bands & MIMO & GNSS Systems
Mode Frequency Bands
5G NR SA
n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n13/n14/n18/n20/n25/n26/n28/n29/n30/n38/n40/n41/n48/
n66/n70/n71/n75/n76/n77/n78/n79
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: n1/n2/n3/n7/n25/n30/n38/n40/n41/n48/n66/n70/n77/n78/n79
UL 2 × 2 MIMO: n38/n41/n48/n77/n78/n79
5G NR NSA
n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n13/n14/n18/n20/n25/n26/n28/n29/n30/n38/n40/n41/n48/
n66/n70/n71/n75/n76/n77/n78/n79
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: n1/n2/n3/n7/n25/n30/n38/n40/n41/n48/n66/n70/n77/n78/n79
LTE
FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B14/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28/B29/
B30/B32/B66/B71
TDD: B34/B38/B39/B40/B41/B42/B43/B46(LAA)/B48
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: B1/B2/B3/B4/B7/B25/B30/B38/B40/B41/B42/B43/B48/B66
WCDMA B1/B2/B4/B5/B8/B19
GNSS GPS/GLONASS/BDS/Galileo/QZSS

RM520N-EU Frequency Bands & MIMO & GNSS Systems
Mode Frequency Bands
5G NR SA
n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n71/n75/n76/n77/n78
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: n1/n3/n7/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78
UL 2 × 2 MIMO: n38/n40/n41/n77/n78
5G NR NSA n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n71/n75/n76/n77/n78
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: n1/n3/n7/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78
LTE
FDD: B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B20/B28/B32/B71
TDD: B38/B40/B41/B42/B43
DL 4 × 4 MIMO: B1/B3/B7/B38/B40/B41/B42/B43
WCDMA B1/B5/B8
GNSS GPS/GLONASS/BDS/Galileo/QZSS

This is my tower detail and I would like to know what is the right module to aggregate all available bands and get the maximum speed:
B1 B3 B7 B20 B38 N3 N78
FDD Passive
TDD sub-6GHz AAU
DSS

Many thanks

Dear @rm111
GL has more bands than EU. Please choose depend on your requirement.

RM520NGLAP-M20-HP is a customized project for other customer, it is not recommanded to use due to I am not sure what change for this project.

GLAP is PCIe only, if want to use, please follow the hardware to design your board and mark sure power supply is enough. Please note the firmware is not GLAPR01A03, due to this is too old, it can’t upgrade to the latest and has risk to upgrade.

Thanks for your help!
Regarding RM520NGLAP-M20-HP and any other GLAP modules, I have understood that firmware is old and cannot be upgraded. If so, then I feel to exclude any GLAP module and the choice remains between RM520N-EU and RM520N-GL.

Yes, I see GL has more bands and this is why I’m reluctant with EU version because if I change tower or the current tower get upgraded, I suppose the GL version has more chances to get better combos.

My tower has B1 B3 B7 B20 B38 N3 N78 and, supposing I have not misunderstood the above specs and they are the more recent ones, I don’t see any difference for such bands in any of the configurations.
So, I should expect that both should perform in the same way, but I see here european people getting very poor results with GL and I’m trying to understand if I could face the same risks. I have pretty much the same bands, mines are marked as B1 B3 etc while there I read A1 A3 etc. It’s the same, right?

I never played with such kind of modules, so everything is new to me and very hard to understand the right module to buy. Even harder now given that for my bands I can’t see any difference in both the modules.
Thanks

Dear @silvia
can you please tell me what are the supported combinations by RM520N-EU and RM520N-GL? Because this is not clear at all and it’s something that a customer has the rights to know in order to make informed purchasing decisions. Even more given the issues people reported here.

I repeat again my tower details and there is no difference in the supported bands for both the modules in relation to that tower (supposing the above specs extracted from your pdf are the more recent ones):

Thanks

Dear @rm111
For register, there are many factors, like the combinations with carrier, the signal, not only module.

rm111 te lo scrivo in Italiano :slight_smile: stai alla larga dalla versione GLAP, sono versioni modificate castrate e in uso a terzi tipo hp o lenovo o dell, per lavorare solo in particolari bus, con restrizioni legate ai marchi o laptop associati …io ti consiglio, dato che già la uso, la n-gl (ma che sia nglAA), la usi anche sui routers di altre marche in usb3, con adattatori da 40€…

And these are factors I can’t control, I’m perfectly fine with this. What I need to know is the supported combos of the module based on the tower specs I provided. I can take the risk as long as I can exclude it is not module limitation. Unlike GL, no combinations have been published for Eu version.

Grazie raoul. Si, le GLAP le avevo già escluse e a quanto pare avviene la stessa cosa anche con altri marchi.
Da quel che ho capito, la RM520NGLAA è ancora più castrata, almeno per gli europei. Guarda il topic “Carrier aggregation not getting all bands RM520N-GL”, un disastro. Almeno due bande perse. Avere una N3 con 2 LTE non è ciò che definirei andar bene. 150€ per poi scoprire che un fibocom da 40€ va molto più forte. Se poi il Quectel viene usato in USB è ancora più spreco (visto che in pcie mode arrivano i dati dal modulo direttamente via ethernet senza ulteriore processing della CPU necessario per la connessione è USB).