I would appreciate feedback on a potential issue that I need to address with a customer that will be deploying a modem with the EC25-AFXD. I will provide general information for now so if specific details are required, I will consider what I can share.
I’ve reviewed what the customer provided as a base modem configuration that includes a non-standard APN - or at least one that the carrier’s technical support is not familiar with.
I have confirmed that the customer has provisioned/activated ICCIDs with their carrier as open Internet and a dynamic public IP range. It is 4G only. Apparently, their typical channel contacts for these activations are unable to confirm the usage of any APN other than what is posted in a knowledge base. They will state this is not their area of expertise.
There is no reason to believe that a non-standard APN was provided to this customer in the beginning and there does not appear to have been a plan for a private APN/network to be provisioned by the carrier.
The challenge faced is that their configuration was deployed as a pilot and there were no identified issues. All network connectivity testing passed, and the customer did not observe any issues with their applications. It’s unclear if there was ever need for this customer to reengage the carrier’s support for any concerns.
I am concerned there could be risk with a deployment if the configured APN is not corrected. I’m not sure I can even imagine what could go awry and potentially contribute to an outage. However, to present an argument will require an adequate explanation of potential risk beyond just pointing out the obvious expected and correct APN in a carrier’s knowledge base document. After all, the customer tested and saw no problem. As a third-party in this, the customer’s expectation was not necessarily that a configuration review or critique would result.
I hope my dilemma can be appreciated. Any thoughts/feedback and/or technical explanation would be very helpful.