No cell connection on EG25-G modem

Blue Robotics Products Communication Interfaces
1

Hello,

we are having troubles getting our BlueBoat an internet connection using the Quectel EG25-G cellular modem.
We have followed the instructions but the modem does not seem to find any nearby cell towers.

What we have tried so far:

We changed the APN, as the Vodafone website says it should be “web.vodafone.de” while another modem, in which the SIM card previously worked flawlessly, was configured with just “vodafone.de”.
We also tested the modem with both of these APNs outside for better reception to no avail.

We tried disabling the connection to an external Wi-Fi, which we had used to update the BlueOS version on setup. This too made no difference.

We tried restarting the modem, core container and boat individually, also to no avail.

System Info:

  • BlueOS: 1.4.3
  • Cellular Modem Manager:
    • Version: 0.3.4
    • Container CPU Usage: 0.1%
    • Container Memory Usage: 16MB
    • No disk usage from container

Cellular Modem Manager container logs:

2026-06-08 10:33:23.552 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:__init__:32 - Starting cellphone-modem-manager settings with SettingsV1, configuration path: None
2026-06-08 10:33:23.556 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:122 - Found possible candidates for settings source: [PosixPath('/root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json')]
2026-06-08 10:33:23.556 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:124 - Checking /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json for settings
2026-06-08 10:33:23.557 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:load:70 - Loading settings from file: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:33:23.558 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:127 - Using /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json as settings source
2026-06-08 10:33:23.914 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:__init__:32 - Starting cellphone-modem-manager settings with SettingsV1, configuration path: None
2026-06-08 10:33:23.915 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:122 - Found possible candidates for settings source: [PosixPath('/root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json')]
2026-06-08 10:33:23.916 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:124 - Checking /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json for settings
2026-06-08 10:33:23.916 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:load:70 - Loading settings from file: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:33:23.917 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.managers.pydantic_manager:load:127 - Using /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json as settings source
2026-06-08 10:33:24.048 | INFO     | __main__:<module>:22 - Releasing the extension Cellphone Modem Manager.
2026-06-08 10:43:39.978 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:45:40.841 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:47:41.701 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:49:42.567 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:51:43.443 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:53:44.316 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:55:45.183 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:57:46.063 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 10:59:46.916 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 11:01:47.778 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json
2026-06-08 11:03:48.640 | DEBUG    | commonwealth.settings.bases.pydantic_base:save:122 - Saving settings on: /root/.config/cellphone-modem-manager/settings-1.json

ifconfig output for interface usb1:

usb1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.225.41  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.225.255
        ether e6:a6:5c:72:a6:2d  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 1682  bytes 116152 (113.4 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 3251  bytes 336428 (328.5 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

I’ve found these two related posts but they did not really help me much:

If there are any logs or screenshots you need for debugging, I’ll gladly provide them.
Otherwise I’d also be happy about alternative modems if you think that may help.
I’ve seen on this thread that the Quectel EG25-G is not the only option.

2

Hi @jkohl -

Are you using the USB cable that came with the modem? Was the modem purchased from Blue Robotics? The cellular modem manager is intended to only work with this model…

Does the modem work when plugged into a Windows or Mac computer?

If you take the red-pill at the BlueOS terminal, and then type dmesg, do you see any messages related to USB voltage or the device in general? A screenshot of this would be helpful!