Hey all,
Getting ready (planning/researching) to have OVMS 4G with Nissan Leaf 2015 (Canada).
After reading
- https://docs.openvehicles.com/en/latest/components/vehicle_nissanleaf/docs/index.html
- http://www.arachnon.de/wb/pages/en/nissan-leaf/tcu.php
An idea comes to mind, (couldn't find an existing post about this);
Could we not use Nissan's SIM from the original TCU, in OVMS, on their dime? I can't imagine how they would prevent it. Since Nissan is not providing replacement TCU modems to support 4G (effectively letting a portion of the value $ just "die" from their products), it seems fair and reasonable that they can continue to pay for trivial monthly OVMS IoT KBs.
:) thoughts?
The short answer is: no.
Nice try though. I started out with a Hologram "Pilot" SIM (which you can later convert over to whatever plan you want).
if the SIM is the same form factor, why wouldn't it work?
Nissan doesn't want their SIM cards shucked and used in other devices where they don't see the benefit (automated data uploading). Thus, they likely implemented restrictions on the network side to block unapproved use of the SIM. This could include, for example, restrictions or a lock down based on the serial number of the device in use (IMEI or similar)
i guess perhaps it is possible it's locked
...
but a sim is just a Subscriber Identity Module
it shouldn't really be limited to a particular mobile band ... (that's for the modem to deal with) << EDIT: this statement is false (SIM cards are limited to their frequency/band of mobile network)
and "locked" concept is for a device to be locked to a network - has nothing to do with the SIm
anyhoo - maybe it won't work maybe it will
ill try it when i get to that point and report back (could be months )
I didn't want to say this earlier (sounds a bit condescending), but at this point I don't want to spread FUD to other users.
The long answer (to my first post): you obviously don't understand how wireless networks operate, because the SIM from the Nissan TCU will never work in the OVMS module.
consider this
https://justaskthales.com/us/can-i-move-my-cell-phone-service-just-moving-my-sim-new-phone/
normally we can move a sim from carrier A to carrier B (consider Nissan TCU locked, and presumably OVMS is not locked)
EDIT1: What i mean is, normally, carrier's are locked by device, not SIM; The SIM is merely an identifier, and it CAN work in any other device so long as it is unlocked.
There's also no such thing as a "3G SIM" vs. a "4G SIM"so: is the SIM card in the Nissan TCU not a regular SIM? it should in theory be able to be moved
--
EDIT2: upon further research however, it does seem true that older 2G/3G SIm cards CAN work in newer modem/IoT/phone devices but they might be limited to the old network band/frequency (I don't understand why - but there is definitely a lot of confounding information out there) i.e. https://www.quora.com/Can-I-use-a-2G-SIM-in-a-4G-SIM-slot
I can tell you that getting a newer 4g TCU that was bought and installed, coded to the car and then trying to be activated fails. They flushed all the connections on the Nissan side where gen1 cars are no longer selectible on the nissan side. Looking inside the newer 4g (2018) TCU I dont remember seeing a sim (I will double check) but I know with another device (Cellbounce) I have tried to borrow the sim card in the past was sim locked (sim password) and after it was moved to a different deviced it totally locked it out requiring a call to the carrier. That is one simple layer of protection.