nRF9160 DK - Asset Tracker Application - Connect to EMEA nRF Cloud?

[Kevin Kotinkar]

Hi,

I am testing the nRF9160 DK and used the asset tracker application with the IBasis SIM.
Application works fine under CAT M1 network (IBasis SIM is roaming on o2/Telefonica in Germany), but I can't connect to the MQTT broker / nRF cloud on NB-IoT.
(Modem is attached on NB-IoT, signal level (RSRP, RSRQ) is good).

Most likely, this is due to latency issues, as MQTT runs on TCP, which already fairly heavy for NB IoT.

Secondly, I noticed that the application uses a NRF cloud / MQTT server in the US (east coast, Virgina).
Domain: a2n7tk1kp18wix-ats.iot.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

I can connect to MQTT brokers nearby in Europe on NB-IoT (used for example the MQTT sample application), TCP connection was stable enough to support MQTT.
Question is hence, is there a server/gateway for the nRF cloud MQTT broker in Europe or other regions than US East?

Thanks.

BR
Kevin

[Albrecht Markus Schellenberger]

Hello Kevin,

Thanks a lot for the logs! The device in Berlin reports a connection reset error, while the device in Munich claims that the host could not be found with the available network interfaces (which might be the same root cause, only in different words).

Considering the national iBasis coverage of NB-IoT in Germany, I’m not really sure how much support we can provide here.

But I’ll check this with our nRF Cloud team and see if they have any solution to your problem.

Regards,

Markus

[Kevin Kotinkar]

Hi Markus,

thank you for the error code explanations. 

I have to admit that I also had the DK connected to the cloud on NB-IoT once (out of 15 tries maybe). I had my DK running outdoors. However, the XMONITOR and CESQ AT commands usually report fairly good cellular signal parameters, also indoors, thus I thought the cellular coverage is actually not too bad and not the root cause of the issue.

I don't know if there are any tiimeouts for the MQTT connection / cloud connection that I could increase just to see if it works most consistently. Could be the backend of the MNO/MVNO that causes the delays here, resulting in connection issues on TCP, MQTT or another higher layer.

Regarding the actual coverage and as I mentioned previously, iBasis seems to only/or mainly roam on Telefonica/o2 Germany. For those interested, this is the best / latest coverage map of Telefonica Germany that I found:
https://www.o2online.de/netz/


Please let me know if you find out anything further, otherwise feel free to close the case.

BR
Kevin