Configuring IP Connectivity Over a Cellular Network on a Raspberry Pi - Based IoT Node

Abstract

Connecting smart devices using the ubiquitous WiFi radio interface has been very straightforward even for non-technical users for some time now. This paper deals with complementary wireless communication technologies, which are relatively less widely configured manually on PC or Raspberry Pi, and from the perspective of a home user they are not trivially configured within a Linux-like system. 3GPP standardized cellular network-based radio WAN communication interfaces complementary to WLAN provide the desired IP connectivity. Detailed practical instructions on how to configure connectivity over existing high-throughput 4G network along with the legacy 2G-based backup and alert SMS channel on the Raspberry Pi platform using a GPIO and USB connected external modem are provided. The cellular-connected node is then tested in an Arduino-based IoT network where various low-power nodes offload the complex processing and data anlytics to a high-performance central computer.