Industrial 4G LTE (Eziwan Dual SIM) vs. Dedicated Fiber Optics
| Criterion | Industrial 4G LTE (Eziwan) | Dedicated fiber-optic line |
|---|---|---|
| Typical download speed | 10–150 Mbps | ✓ 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps |
| Typical upload speed | 5–50 Mbps | ✓ 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps (symmetrical) |
| Typical latency | 20-80 ms | ✓ 1–5 ms (local) |
| Jitter | 5–30 ms (variable) | ✓ < 1 ms (deterministic) |
| Deployment Timeframe | ✓ < 1 hour (ZTP) | ✗ 3 to 18 months (civil engineering) |
| Installation Cost | ✓ 300–1,500€ (equipment) | ✗ 5,000–50,000€ (range) |
| Monthly cost | ✓ 20–100€/month (data SIM) | 50–500€/month (subscription) |
| Geographic Availability | ✓ 4G coverage > 95% of France | ✗ Urban and semi-rural areas |
| Built-in redundancy | ✓ Dual SIM (2 carriers) | Redundancy if there are 2 fiber links |
| Mobility / Temporary Site | ✓ Total (plug-and-play) | ✗ Not possible (fixed infrastructure) |
| The Transition to 5G | ✓ 5G module available | Not applicable |
| LTE-M / NB-IoT Support | ✓ Yes (lightweight sensors) | Not applicable |
| Network Outages | Rare (except in areas with no coverage) | ✓ Very rare (underground cable) |
| Automatic failover | ✓ Native (detection < 30s) | Manually or using dedicated equipment |
| French Industrial Operators | ✓ Orange, SFR, Bouygues, Free | Local carrier or Orange/SFR |
| Ideal Use Cases | Remote locations, backup, mobility | High-speed fixed-line connections |
8 Technical Comparison Points for Choosing the Right Connectivity
Fiber optics offer symmetrical data rates ranging from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps with a latency of 1 to 5 ms over a dedicated link. It is the gold standard for applications requiring high and consistent throughput: high-definition video surveillance, large-scale backups, and real-time data synchronization. 4G LTE offers download speeds of 10 to 150 Mbps but with a latency of 20 to 80 ms, which can vary depending on the operator’s network load. For SCADA monitoring and remote maintenance (a few KB/s of data), this latency is perfectly acceptable. The 4G jitter of 5 to 30 ms does not affect Modbus applications whose timeouts are configured to 500 ms or more.
This is the absolute strength of 4G. An Eziwan router with a 4G SIM card is up and running in less than an hour: plug it in, turn it on, insert the SIM card. No civil engineering work, no waiting for the carrier, no digging. 4G coverage in metropolitan France extends to over 95% of the inhabited territory. Fiber-optic connections are sometimes impossible in isolated rural or industrial areas, with deployment times ranging from 3 to 18 months and civil engineering costs running into the tens of thousands of euros. For extractive industries (quarries, mines), industrial agricultural sites, or isolated pumping stations, 4G is often the only realistic option.
The optimal architecture for critical industrial sites combines both: fiber as the primary link (bandwidth, latency) and Eziwan 4G as an automatic backup. Eziwan configures a WAN failover: as long as the fiber connection is working, traffic flows through it. In the event of an outage (construction, carrier failure), the switch to 4G occurs automatically in less than 30 seconds. This redundancy meets the NIS2 requirements for service continuity for operators of vital importance and critical entities. The additional monthly cost of a 4G backup SIM (20 to 40 euros) is negligible compared to the cost of one hour of production downtime.
An operator’s fiber network provides physical isolation by design—traffic does not pass through the public Internet. 4G transmits data over the Internet: without encryption, the data is exposed. Eziwan solves this problem with OpenVPN: all communications (Modbus data, remote access, monitoring) travel through an AES-256-encrypted tunnel. The “zero-inbound-port” principle means that no ports are open on the OT network—even with a public 4G IP address, no intrusion is possible without the OpenVPN cryptographic keys. The private APNs offered by industrial operators (Orange, SFR) also allow M2M traffic to be isolated on an operator-provided virtual private network.
Public 4G networks share radio capacity among all subscribers. In the event of network congestion (such as a local event or incident), data speeds and latency deteriorate for everyone. Private 4G networks (deployed on dedicated CBRS frequency bands or national spectrum licenses) offer dedicated radio capacity and guaranteed SLAs. In France, Orange, SFR, and Bouygues offer private 4G/5G services for industrial areas. The rates are higher, but the level of service meets industrial requirements. Eziwan integrates with both architectures, with APN configuration tailored to the type of network.
5G offers three critical improvements for industry: ultra-low latency (less than 1 ms in URLLC mode), massive throughput (up to 10 Gbps), and connection density (1 million devices per km²). These features pave the way for wireless control of real-time actuators, AGVs (Autonomous Guided Vehicles), and edge video analytics. In France, industrial 5G deployments will accelerate in 2025–2026, particularly in industrial and port areas and large factories. Eziwan is designed to integrate 5G modules via a hardware update, preserving the investment in software and applications.
For industrial sensor applications with power-saving requirements (battery or solar power), LTE-M and NB-IoT offer cost-effective alternatives. LTE-M provides data rates of up to 1 Mbps with mobility, making it ideal for asset trackers on vehicles or mobile equipment. NB-IoT is limited to 250 Kbps but provides battery life of 5 to 10 years, making it perfect for tank level sensors, leak detectors, or energy meters in areas without power. These technologies coexist with standard 4G LTE in the Eziwan ecosystem: the gateway manages the collection of data from NB-IoT sensors and transmits it to the cloud.
Eziwan supports sophisticated failover policies tailored to industrial requirements. Signal-quality-based (RSSI) failover proactively switches over before the link actually fails. Session failover keeps TCP/Modbus connections active during the transition through session persistence. MWAN3 (Multi-WAN) mode enables load balancing across multiple simultaneous links to maximize throughput and resilience. In supervised mode, each link change triggers an alert in the Eziwan dashboard and generates a timestamped log for NIS2 availability audits.
4 Real-Life Scenarios Illustrating the Choice Between 4G and Fiber
Background: Water utility managing 40 pumping stations spread across 3 rural departments
Each station is connected via an Eziwan 4G router with an Orange SIM card and a Bouygues SIM card. SCADA monitoring of the Schneider PLCs and the transmission of volumetric meter readings are performed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with an availability rate exceeding 99.95%. Deployment cost: 800 euros per site, compared to 15,000 to 30,000 euros for a fiber connection to each remote station.
Background: Cheese production facility with 200 connected machines, video surveillance, and a cloud-based ERP system
The 1 Gbps symmetric fiber connection supports real-time MES, high-quality video analytics, and daily 2 TB backups. The Eziwan 4G gateway provides automatic backup in the event of a fiber outage (failover in 20 seconds), ensuring the continuity of product traceability and critical process alarms.
Background: 12 offshore wind turbines with an onshore delivery station in a rural coastal area
Turbine monitoring (power, vibrations, temperatures), remote start/stop controls, and remote maintenance diagnostics are transmitted via 4G using a private APN that isolates SCADA traffic from the public Internet. The Eziwan OpenVPN tunnel encrypts all communications. The operator, Orange Business, guarantees a 4-hour restoration SLA for the industrial SIM card.
Background: An 18-month construction project requiring equipment supervision, consumption tracking, and access control
The Eziwan gateway is moved from one job site to another without any configuration changes. Zero Touch Provisioning allows the site supervisor to deploy the router themselves in 15 minutes at a new job site. Data is automatically uploaded to the same cloud dashboard. At the end of the project, the gateway is retrieved and immediately reused at the next site.
The 5 Most Common Mistakes When Choosing Industrial Connectivity
Consumer SIM cards (personal mobile plans) do not offer any SLA, can be canceled or blocked by the carrier without notice, and share capacity with millions of subscribers. For an industrial site, always opt for professional M2M SIM cards with a dedicated APN.
The operators' coverage maps are optimistic. Inside a metal cabinet, in a basement, or in a semi-rural area, the signal can be very weak. Always test with a 4G dongle at the site before purchasing the industrial router. Eziwan lets you check signal quality in real time using its RSSI/RSRQ indicators.
At a site without fiber-optic connectivity, 4G is the only connection. A single SIM card from a single carrier represents a single point of failure. A dual-SIM setup with two different carriers is essential to achieve availability greater than 99.9% at a site without physical redundancy.
Transmitting SCADA or Modbus data in plain text over a 4G connection exposes the entire OT network. Industrial process data traveling over the Internet without encryption can be intercepted. The Eziwan OpenVPN tunnel is mandatory as soon as OT data leaves the local network and travels to the Internet.
Comparing only the initial hardware cost obscures the economic reality. Over a 5-year period, factor in the cost of fiber-optic civil engineering, deployment timelines, maintenance work, and replacements for faulty equipment. The TCO of a well-chosen industrial 4G solution is often lower than that of fiber at remote sites.
Which connectivity technology dominates in each sector?
Pumping stations scattered across large rural areas, often without fiber-optic infrastructure. The Dual SIM feature, which supports two carriers, ensures that remote controls and overflow alerts are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Facilities with high data volumes (video surveillance, traceability, robots, real-time ERP) that require fiber as their primary connection. Eziwan 4G serves as a backup to ensure continuity during network maintenance.
Wells, compressor stations, and metering stations are often located in remote rural areas without fiber-optic connectivity. The industrial router’s rugged design (-20°C to +70°C), dual SIM capability, and OpenVPN/IPSec VPN meet security and availability requirements.
Commercial buildings in urban areas are generally already connected to fiber. The bandwidth required for building management systems, video surveillance, and cloud access makes fiber the ideal primary connection.
Wind farms and solar power plants are located in rural areas with no infrastructure. 4G with Dual SIM and VPN is the standard solution for remote monitoring of inverters, transformers, and production meters.
Beyond raw throughput, an industrial WAN link is evaluated based on actual radio coverage, deterministic latency, transport security, and regulatory compliance. Here are the technical and regulatory benchmarks to help you make the right decision and properly size your solution.
Defines the LTE categories: Cat-4 (150/50 Mbps), Cat-6/12/18 with carrier aggregation. The choice of category determines the peak data rate and band compatibility.
Low-data-rate, long-range variants: LTE-M (Cat-M1, ≤1 Mbps, mobile) and NB-IoT (≤250 kbps, fixed sensors). Intended only for auxiliary sensors, not for SCADA/VPN data transmission.
Radio and EMC requirements for cellular equipment. Ensures compliance of the router's radio module (CE marking).
Single-mode fiber and optical access architectures. Benchmark for deterministic latency (<1–5 ms) and symmetric throughput of dedicated fiber.
Requires critical/important entities to ensure service continuity and network resilience—hence the requirement for a 4G backup link with logged failover.
OT system security requirements: segmentation, data encryption, and access control. Requires the use of a VPN tunnel whenever OT data leaves the local network.
Target hybrid architecture: fiber as the primary link (bandwidth, latency), with 4G as automatic failover. The outbound VPN encrypts 100% of OT traffic; no inbound ports are exposed (zero-inbound model), even on a public 4G IP address.
| Parameter | Benchmark value | Impact / Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| RSRP (signal strength) | > -95 dBm | Okay. Between -105 and -95 dBm: acceptable. < -110 dBm: external antenna required. |
| RSRQ (signal quality) | > -12 dB | Fair quality. < -15 dB indicates a saturated or distorted sensor. |
| SINR | > 13 dB | Optimal data rate. < 0 dB: unstable connection; use a directional antenna. |
| MTU VPN tunnel | 1,400 bytes | Setting the MTU to less than 1,500 prevents UDP fragmentation on a 4G network. |
| Modbus Timeout | 500-1000 ms | Handles a 4G jitter of 5–30 ms without triggering a false slave error. |
| Failover Detection | < 30 s | ICMP/DNS probes + Dead Peer Detection; failover time < 8 s. |
Values to be verified on-site using the router's RSRP/RSRQ/SINR indicators before any deployment in a semi-rural area.
Transition from field monitoring to supervision of 4G Dual SIM (Orange + Bouygues), Schneider PLCs, Modbus data transmission, and volumetric meters.
Additional Resources on Eziwan Industrial Connectivity
Dual-SIM 4G/LTE gateway with automatic WAN failover. Up and running in less than an hour. Built-in OpenVPN/IPSec VPN for all your OT data.