Why The List of Supported Modems Is Incomplete

We curate a page of modems known to work with LiveU products, particularly the LiveU Solo.

But this list is not a complete list of modem that will and will not work with your Solo.  Why not?  We certainly agree such a list would be extremely helpful.  But the world of USB modems is a fairly non-standard one, and understanding that can help you in preparing for selecting modems to use with your units.

Many Modems Around the World

First and foremost, the list of total make and models of USB modems worldwide is impressively long.  This, alone, is a bit of a challenge to creating a comprehensive list.  Some of these modems have relatively short lives on the market (sometimes as short as 12 months), and while similar shapes, antenna designs and general appearances are used for future part numbers, sometimes subtle parts of the internal setups change.

No Universal Protocol

A few years ago, this was probably the biggest problem.  Every modem required its own "dialing" and this required a lot of effort to keep up with modem support.  The good news several companies have made big strides in this area towards a more universal way to make a modem connect, including protocols like MBIM and QMI.  Neither protocol is quite universally adopted yet, but the progress is a great start.  In the meantime however, its possible for the same modem model to use different connection protocols just based on the firmware or even settings in the modem - meaning the same model bought in one country my "dial differently" in another, blocking us from being able to say we are sure a given model works no matter where in the world you buy it.

Carriers, Firmwares, Modes

One last layer here, each carrier that sells a modem meant to operate on its network has the option to dictate what firmware, and in some cases what mode the modem operates in.  Similar to above, this means the same modem sold in one country may need to be connected different (from a software standpoint) in another country.  This means that any list of supported modems has to account for operator, country, firmware version and mode and not just make and model of the modem.  That makes the first point (there are many modems in the world) exponentially longer and harder.

Then What Can We Do?

This article is meant to share the reasons why expanding our list of supported modems is so hard - but its not meant to be bad news!  

LiveU is committed to supporting key modems in every country, and your help in keeping up the list is greatly appreciated!  

So if you find a modem offered by a carrier you need, and its not on our list, here are some steps you can take:

1. Try it - if its easy to do so its great to just try it out.  Many modems will work "out of the box" thanks to the growing support for universal protocols (outlined above).
2. If it doesn't work, try it in your laptop - see if the modem has a little user interface, often offered as a web page, and if in that interface there is an option to "auto connect", or if by default your laptop starts not connected - having the modem work could be as simple as turning on the modem's "auto connect" feature!
3. When all else fails, get in contact with us - if its not easy to try a modem out, if you try it and can't make it work and can't resolve it via an auto-connect or other setting changes, certainly open a support case here with information on the carrier, make and model of the modem.  We want to know what works and what doesn't, and will always consider supporting a modem that is not working today.  In fact open a case even if it does work because we would love to know and keep our list up to date!