OTD500 -eSIM Activation - Solved

[welsomer]

Sunday, 14 September 2025, OTD 500 Firmware OTD5_R_00.07.17.3

The problem is that I have an OTD500. I have bought a eSIM. I want to get it registered. It needs the internet to get registered. And, until the sSIM is registered, it can’t get internet! A chicken-and-egg situation.

So the support says, get a wired internet connection to the Lan2 [PoE-Out] port. That gives you internet. So you can download the eSIM.

Easier said than done. I’m pretty experienced but it took me 3 hours. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done with huge amounts of trial and error

I wasted a good hour trying to get eSIM ‘Bootstrap’ process working.

There’s something in the online documentation about the OTD500 calling home to the RMS service using a data connection not connected with your eSIM provider and then being able to remotely configure it with a csv file

Don’t bother! It didn’t work.

So this is what I did

Give the OTD500 a manual IP Address. My home network is 192.168.40.0/24, so I gave it a static IP address 192.168.40.77 – outside the DHCP range.

Logon to the OTD with the admin user and password using the local network. No internet at this stage.

First, work out whether you can access the internet from the OTD500. You know that you do have access when you get a ping using System, Maintenance, Troubleshoot, Diagnostics. I tried pinging 8.8.8.8. Until you get an internet connection, you’ll never register your eSIM.

Success looks like you get a successful ping.

Now, this is the key bit to get this working…

I power up the OTD500 with a little POE injector. It has two RJ45 sockets – one to power the OTD500 and another to connect to the network.

I first tried using the second PoE Out port on the OTD500 into a switch on my network. Then I tried using the spare port on the injector to connect to a switch on the network. There’s bit of trial and error. Either way, your OTD500 should be connected to a switch on your home network.

Then on the OTD500 go to WAN, WAN Interfaces. Choose the first one mob1s1a1 and edit it. Change it from Mobile, to Wired Lan1 on physical settings. Turn on DHCP and that will enable you to configure the OTD to use the switch to access the internet.

General Settings

Physical Settings

This is what it looks like – the green ‘Running’ status is what you want.

Now go and ping 8.8.8.8 using System, Maintenance, Troubleshoot, Diagnostics .

Now you have an internet connection.

Make sure you have your QR Code as a jpg pr png from your eSIM provider. I had to download it to my phone using the provider’s app, screenshot it. Then email the screenshot to my PC. Edit it to get rid of all the other stuff in the screen shot. Bit of a faff. But the OTD will interpret the QR code.

So then I went to Network, Mobile, General, SIM3 to make the eSIM default’ and active

Then I went to Network, Mobile, eSIM Profiles and uploaded the QRCode I’d saved from my phone. It then gives you the ActivationCode in the format LPA:1$rsp.truphone.com$5C-2NxxO4-19xxxx

Press download

It took a few minutes. I needed to go upstairs where I have a stronger mobile signal for this as it didn’t work first time.

And then to confirmed it was connected in the eSIM profiles.

Ta Dah!

Finally, I reset the WAN, mob1s1a1 interface back to inactive and mobile.

And that was that.

I hope this is helpful. The OTD500 is an expensive piece of kit. The PoE Output is only on 803.2af Variant B, which is incompatible with Ubiquiti kit so I have to have a second PoE injector to broadcast wifi from my wifi disk. Ho hum.

And, to cap it all, I can get better mobile reception on my Pixel6a than I can on this very large device with large antennas etc. Something’s not quite right here. But at least I’ve got my own secure mobile & wifi when i go to hotels - not that I’m paranoid or anything.

[Justinas]

Greetings,

Thank you for sharing the solution, I am sure this will be very helpful to people experiencing similar issues.

Regarding the signal strength, getting better reception on your phone is usual, since modern phones support faster LTE technologies and different modem architecture than most Teltonika-Networks devices as they are made and used for different purposes. Most of the speed discrepancies are due to carrier aggregation (CA). To see how CA and other factors can affect LTE speeds, please refer to the LTE Speed Discrepancies page.

Best regards,
Justinas

[welsomer]

Hello

It would have been nicer to get faster speeds. But you only get the faster speeds once you’re connected to the carrier. And I have found it easier to get a strong signal connection with my pocket Pixel than the much larger OTD - an optimised devise with large antennas.

And until you get connected, it doesn’t matter what the potential speeds might be.

[Justinas]

@welsomer

And I have found it easier to get a strong signal connection with my pocket Pixel than the much larger OTD - an optimised devise with large antennas.

As mentioned previously, comparing signal strength on a phone and a router isn’t fair, because getting better reception on your phone is usual, since modern phones support faster LTE technologies and have a different modem architecture than most Teltonika-Networks devices as they are made and used for different purposes. Please have a look through this page it should clear up your questions. LTE Speed Discrepancies page.

Regards,
Justinas

[Jan.S]

Thanks for your effort! The summary is good and very detailed.
It’s a bit disappointing that the images are too small and can’t be zoomed in.

The Teltonika documentation is very technical, mainly written for IT engineers or administrators. It’s not really end-user-friendly and even hard to understand for advanced private users like me.

Since the products are great and powerful, I don’t understand why Teltonika doesn’t provide simple, step-by-step manuals for end users.

I also had problems with the settings on my OTD500, especially getting an eSIM to work.
Here are two options to set up a WAN connection with an eSIM:

1. Use LAN1, disable DHCP, and connect the device directly to your private network. Your DHCP host will assign the device a new IP so you can access the GUI.

2. Use one of the two SIM slots to get internet WAN access. This is probably the easiest way.

[Jan.S]

I have to correct my last post, but editing is not possible.

As far as I saw the last month with the latest firmware, it’s not possible to use another SIM to activate the eSIM, which is really disappointing. This would made the setup process much more easy and the device fast accessible.