Cellular
2G FONA-era boards, LTE Cat 1/Cat M1/NB-IoT modules, and M.2 Cat 6/5G modems target different networks and hosts. Check carrier sunset and bandwidth tier before ordering.
Adafruit FONA GSM breakouts, the Gravity Air780EU 4G Cat 1 module, Dragino NB-IoT Shield-B8, Pycom FiPy, Quectel and SIMCom M.2 5G modems, and the RockBLOCK 9603 Iridium modem each target a different network tier.
- Adafruit FONA, the SIM800C shield, and SIM900 GPRS boards are 2G GSM — sunset or gone on many carriers; the Gravity Air780EU 4G Cat 1 module is the current swap-in for EMEA and Thailand.
- The low-power IoT tier is Dragino's NB-IoT Shield-B8, the Pycom FiPy (LTE Cat M1 and NB-IoT alongside LoRa, Sigfox, and Wi-Fi), and the Particle Boron with managed cellular and mesh.
- The bandwidth tier — Quectel EM06-A (LTE Cat 6) and RM520N-GL / SIMCom SIM8262 5G Sub-6G modules — is M.2 cards for SBCs and x86 hosts, not microcontroller breakouts.
- When there is no cell coverage at all, the RockBLOCK 9603 Iridium satellite modem is the remaining option in this group.
