“It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of using the Robustel lineup, however when I last used it, Smart Roaming was an INCREDIBLY useful feature, especially when you are the one responsible for deploying the router and ensuring good, reliable coverage. It seems the ability to upload Site Survey information is a new feature - cool!
That’s great for providing evidence to the customer that these processes and optimizations have been carried out.”
Joe R.
Solutions Architect, UK
2025
The quote above from a Robustel power-user in UK nicely encapsulates the power of Smart Roaming! It’s a Swiss Army knife for Roaming SIM management, and gives the best possible reliability for any type of 4G or 5G connection. 2025 sees the launch of the 3rd generation product – Smart Roaming v3 – with innovative new features.
Smart Roaming is a new technology available exclusively in Robustel routers to increase cellular connection reliability to the levels required by IoT and M2M solution providers. Multi-network (aka roaming) SIMs have often been proposed as the solution to intermittent GSM communications but this is only half the story – a story rarely understood or fully explained by those selling such products.
In principle, roaming SIMs that give access to all 3G,4G & 5G networks in any one country sound like a great solution to the limitations of making a cellular internet connection through a single network operator. Finite coverage and potential intermittent congestion are the key issues that can cause downtime if a single network SIM is used as opposed to a roaming one. However, using a roaming SIM is only part of the solution.
Network selection is a function of the hardware NOT the SIM card so whilst a roaming SIM seems like a good idea in principle, it is possible to use a multi-network SIM but still find that your device (router/modem) does not move to an alternative network when connectivity is lost. The full details of the process that governs ‘network selection’ is described in 3GPP standard TS 3GPP 23.122 which can be downloaded from ‘portal.3gpp.org’. This will help explain to the more technical reader the full detail and limitations of automatic network selection.
System integrators opt for a roaming SIM and are sometimes disappointed to discover that they can still be confronted by obscure connectivity issues that are hard to understand and more importantly, hard to fix.
All Robustel routers that support ‘Smart Roaming’, ‘Smart Roaming v2’ or 'Smart Roaming v3' can be configured to check for loss of mobile data communications on the current network and be forced to change to an alternative network within a short period of time. This can save the cost of site visits and provides peace of mind that you have implemented the ‘highest reliability’ Comms methodology for your connected devices before rolling out a large estate of cellular-connected devices.
Smart Roaming checks not only signal strength but also ‘ping times’ and ‘ping completion’ to build a more complete picture of the current connection. If the Health Check fails, the router will dynamically assess the quality of alternative networks and change to the next best if communications are lost or are of a ‘low quality’.
Smart Roaming v2 extends the original functionality that was solely focussed on resilience to enable more intricate manipulation of Roaming SIMs and most importantly, a built in speed test that allows users to make a real-time assessment of the quality of the internet connection.
Smart Roaming v3 adds a brilliant and comprehensive site survey feature as well as total integration with Robutel’s cloud platform – RCMS, giving you quick and easy control of your Roaming SIMs
See the table below for the SMS commands used with Smart Roaming. In v3, these commands can also be sent as text from the “Terminal” in Robustel’s cloud platform.
If you would like to test a Robustel router with Smart Roaming, simply purchase any device above the R151X series products and it is included free of charge. Ask your local Robustel representative if unsure.
