The serial_lte_modem sample is heavily broken. Unlike the AT client sample which simply works with PuTTY out of the box, for the serial_lte_modem you need to configure PuTTY, Terminal, Keyboard to CR LF. Then it will accept commands until you send an empty line. Once you do that, it will not replay to any further commands until you power cycle the board. On top of that I cannot send PING or connect to anything, even though my Thingy:91 is registered to an NB-IoT network, and has a valid and enabled IP address context. What is the proper syntax of those proprietary AT commands? There is no description on the Infocenter for AT commands, so I used whatever scarce resources there are on the serial_lte_modem page.
While I hear comments that I should not expect different samples to operate likewise, the fact is that they are so inconsistent that you need to have different setting in every single one and each has its own quirks and problems. And if you choose to automate the AT commands over BLE, things get even worse.