Cell connection with or without Dialer-Interface?

[Heinz Schwarzfeuer]

Hi,

i would like to set up a Cisco 2921 ISR G2 with an EHWIC-4G-LTE-G to connect to an UMTS/LTE network.

I found two different ways to configure the connection:

1) Directly under the Cell-Interface

interface Cellular0/1/0
 ip address negotiated
 ip nat outside
 ip virtual-reassembly in
 encapsulation slip
 dialer in-band
 dialer idle-timeout 0
 dialer string lte
 dialer-group 1
 async mode interactive
!

2) In conjunction with a Dialer-Interface:

interface Cellular0/1/0
 ip address negotiated
 encapsulation slip
 dialer in-band
 dialer pool-member 1
 async mode interactive
 routing dynamic

interface Dialer1
 ip address negotiated
 encapsulation slip 
 dialer pool 1 
 dialer idle-timeout 0 
 dialer string lte 
 dialer persistent 
 dialer-group 1

Could someone please explain which one would be the preferred method, or in other words: Does using a dialer - interface has any advantages
over the direct method?

Thanks!

[Vasilii Mikhailovskii]

Hello.

Per Cisco documentation, the prefered method is to use Dialer interface.

PS: not sure why; maybe they extend functionality of Cellular interface to run more than one Dialer on a single physical interface.