Cisco IR809 Industrial Router LTE, 9.6–60V DC and –40 to 60°C

Cisco 809 Industrial Integrated Services Routers, identified as the IR809, are compact, ruggedized cellular routers for remote industrial assets, distribution automation, SCADA backhaul, transportation infrastructure, and machine-to-machine communications. The platform combines multimode 4G LTE, 3G and, on selected models, 2G connectivity with industrial DC power input, Ethernet, serial interfaces, security, routing, QoS, GPS, dual SIM support, and Cisco IOx edge application hosting.

Product role and deployment profile

The IR809 is intended for locations where conventional broadband is unavailable, costly, or unsuitable for industrial operation. It is designed for sealed or ventilated cabinets, roadside equipment, substations, remote utility sites, pipelines, transportation systems, and other distributed installations exposed to shock, vibration, dust, humidity, and temperature variation.

The router supports an input range of 9.6 to 60V DC, allowing direct connection to industrial DC power systems. An optional AC adapter is available for installations where 90 to 264V AC input is required.

Primary application areas include:

• Utility distribution automation and secondary substations
• Water and electrical infrastructure monitoring
• Oil and gas pipeline SCADA
• Roadside monitoring and transportation equipment
• Remote terminal unit connectivity
• Industrial telemetry and control
• Remote asset tracking using GPS
• Cellular WAN backup and multihoming
• Edge applications hosted through Cisco IOx
• LPWA integration through the Cisco Interface Module for LoRaWAN

The unit provides two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and two asynchronous serial interfaces. One serial port is RS-232, while the second supports RS-232 or RS-485. This combination allows the router to connect legacy RTUs, IP devices, cameras, sensors, and local industrial controllers without requiring an additional serial gateway.

Model selection and cellular coverage

The IR809 family has three primary regional router SKUs. Selection must be based on both the carrier network and the operating country. The model names should not be treated as interchangeable because the supported LTE bands and legacy wireless technologies differ.

The IR809G-LTE-LA-K9 does not support 2G. The GA and NA models support 2G through quad-band EDGE, GPRS, and GSM coverage. Theoretical LTE rates depend on carrier channel bandwidth and network provisioning.

The GA and NA models provide Category 3 LTE performance. The LA model provides Category 4 LTE performance with a peak downlink rate of 150 Mbps and peak uplink rate of 50 Mbps. HSPA+ support on the GA and NA models is specified at up to 42.2 Mbps downlink and 5.76 Mbps uplink. DC-HSPA+ is also specified at up to 42.2 Mbps downlink and 5.76 Mbps uplink.

Presales rule: validate the target carrier, country, LTE bands, roaming policy, SIM type, and required fallback technology before selecting the router SKU. A model that supports the correct frequency band but lacks the required carrier profile or approval is not a complete deployment solution.

Interfaces and industrial connectivity

The physical interface set is optimized for small remote cabinets:

• Two 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet ports
• One RS-232 asynchronous serial interface
• One RS-232/RS-485 asynchronous serial interface
• Mini Type-B USB console interface
• Cellular WAN interface supporting multimode wireless technologies
• Dual SIM card sockets
• GPS antenna interface using SMA
• Cellular antenna interfaces using TNC connectors

The serial interfaces support speeds up to 115,200 baud. Supported serial and industrial protocols include SCADA, DNP3, T101-104, Raw Socket TCP and UDP, and SLIP.

The platform supports DNP3 serial-to-DNP3/IP translation and IEC 60870 T101-to-IEC 60870 T104 translation. In a typical SCADA design, the router can receive RTU data over serial, transport it to a control center using IP, and relay configuration commands in the reverse direction. It can also terminate incoming T104 or DNP3 IP requests when the associated RTU is offline.

Raw Socket transport provides an alternative to Block Serial Tunnel. It is suitable where the control application requires transparent serial data transport over TCP or UDP.

The two Ethernet ports support VLANs using Layer 3 IP subinterfaces and inter-VLAN routing. One port can be used as the network edge while the other connects local industrial devices or an internal switch.

PoE is not specified for the IR809. The datasheet provides no PoE ports and no PoE power budget. Designs requiring powered endpoints must include separate power equipment.

Cellular resilience and traffic separation

The router supports single and dual LTE WAN operation for redundancy, high availability, and enhanced throughput. Automatic switchover and failover can be configured between primary and backup links. Dual SIM operation supports active-backup behavior and cellular multihoming.

Multiple Packet Data Networks allow the router to connect to different APNs. This can separate public Internet traffic from mission-critical sensor or SCADA traffic. Multi-VRF allows multiple routing and forwarding instances on the same customer-edge device, including overlapping IP address spaces across separate VPNs.

Cellular QoS supports up to eight concurrent bearers on each cellular WAN interface. The router can classify and prioritize traffic for operational technology, voice, video, telemetry, or management. Actual LTE bearer behavior depends on the service provider’s ability to classify and enforce the requested QoS policies.

The platform also supports:

• IPv4 and IPv6 over cellular
• SMS send and receive, with messages up to 160 characters
• Remote data callback initiated through SMS
• Remote firmware upgrades over LTE
• MEP lock and unlock
• SIM lock and unlock
• 3G and 4G MIB extensions and traps
• Virtual diagnostic monitoring
• LTE link monitoring and recovery following radio failures
• Mobile IP, PMIPv6, and NEMO
• Transparent roaming for mobile networks and subnets

Routing, security, and QoS

The IR809 uses a Universal Cisco IOS Software image. The stated software requirement is Cisco IOS Software Release 15.6(3)M2 or later with modem firmware Release 5.5.58 or later.

Routing and IP services include:

• RIPv1 and RIPv2
• OSPF
• BGP
• EIGRP
• MP-BGP
• GRE and multipoint GRE
• VRF Lite
• NHRP
• BFD
• NAT
• DHCP server, relay, and client
• Dynamic DNS
• DNS proxy and spoofing
• IPv4 and IPv6 multicast
• IPv4 and IPv6 ACLs
• Cisco Express Forwarding
• IP SLA
• WCCP
• 802.1d Spanning Tree Protocol
• L2TP and L2TPv3

Security functions include zone-based policy firewall, stateful inspection firewall, transparent firewall, application inspection and control, VRF-aware firewalling, firewall stateful failover, control-plane policing, flexible packet matching, and network foundation protection.

VPN capabilities include:

• SSL VPN
• IPsec over IPv4 and IPv6
• Up to 20 IPsec tunnels
• DMVPN
• FlexVPN
• Easy VPN client and server
• Tunnel-less Group Encrypted Transport VPN
• VRF-aware IPsec
• IPsec stateful failover
• NAT transparency
• PKI support

Supported encryption includes hardware-accelerated DES, 3DES, AES 128, AES 192, and AES 256.

QoS functions include LLQ, WFQ, CBWFQ, CBTS, CBTP, PBR, CBWRED, RSVP, RTP header compression, DiffServ, QoS preclassify and prefragmentation, HQoS, and CoS-to-DSCP mapping.

Presales rule: size the cellular service and VPN design independently. The published LTE rate is a radio maximum, not an IPsec throughput guarantee. The datasheet does not provide a general encrypted throughput figure, application throughput figure, or concurrent-session capacity.

Edge computing and management

Cisco IOx provides an open, extensible environment for hosting operating system components and applications at the network edge. This supports local processing, monitoring, automation, and control where sending all data to a central cloud is undesirable.

Management interfaces include:

• Cisco IOS CLI
• Mini Type-B USB console
• Telnet
• SSH Version 2
• HTTP and HTTPS
• SNMPv1, v2, and v3
• RADIUS
• TACACS+
• Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager
• Cisco AutoInstall
• Cisco Configuration Engine
• Cisco Prime
• Cisco Control Center
• Cisco IoT Field Network Director
• Cisco IoT Operations Dashboard
• APIC-EM

The router can be remotely configured, monitored, upgraded, and reset to a predesignated golden image. LTE-specific MIBs provide visibility into cellular status and performance. The external reset button provides a local recovery mechanism.

GPS is supported through a separate active GPS antenna connected by SMA. Standalone GPS requires line of sight. Multiple GPS profiles can be configured. Assisted GPS is identified as a capability planned for a later software release in the supplied specifications.

Physical, environmental, and reliability specifications

Operating temperature depends on enclosure airflow:

• -40 to 60 deg C in a sealed NEMA cabinet with no airflow
• -40 to 70 deg C in a vented cabinet with 40 LFM airflow
• -40 to 75 deg C in a forced-air enclosure with 200 LFM airflow
• Type tested at 85 deg C for 16 hours

The router is designed for harsh industrial environments and is type-tested for shock and vibration. The supplied data lists:

• Operating shock: 2.39 m per second, equivalent to 94 in. per second, at 2 ms
• Operating vibration: 3 to 500 Hz, 0.41 GRMS for 2 hours
• Nonoperating shock: 65 to 80G at 8 ms
• Nonoperating vibration: 3 to 500 Hz, 1.12 GRMS for 0.5 hour

The platform is associated with IEEE 1613 and IEC 61850-3 industrial standards. Hazardous-location certifications and test references include Class 1, Division 2, IECEx Class I Zone 2 gas groups IIC, and ATEX Class I Zone 2 gas groups IIC.

Presales rule: calculate cabinet temperature using the installed power, ambient conditions, enclosure thermal behavior, and available airflow. The maximum 75 deg C operating condition requires forced airflow of 200 LFM and is not applicable to a sealed cabinet without airflow.

Antenna selection

Antennas are not included with the IR809 by default. Antenna choice affects installation cost, coverage, cable loss, GPS availability, and mechanical suitability.

Cable selection must match the antenna connector type. The listed N-antenna products are intended to be used with N cables and N lightning arrestors.

Ordering matrix

Additional antenna, cable, and protection SKUs include 4G-ANTM-OM-CM, 4G-CAB-ULL-50, 4G-CAB-ULL-20, CAB-L400-50-TNC-N1, CAB-L400-20-TNC-N1, CAB-L400-20-N-N1, CGR-LA-NF-NF, and CGR-LA-NM-NF. Spare versions are identified by the corresponding part number with an equals suffix where listed.

Warranty and technical services

The IR809 includes a 5-year limited hardware warranty. A technical service contract provides capabilities beyond the base warranty.

Cisco SMARTnet Service includes:

• Global TAC access 24 hours a day
• Access to Cisco online resources, communities, and tools
• Available advance hardware replacement options including NBD, 8 x 5 x 4, 24 x 7 x 4, and 24 x 7 x 2
• Onsite parts replacement and installation where available
• Operating system software updates within the licensed feature set
• Proactive diagnostics and real-time alerts for Smart Call Home-enabled devices

Cisco Smart Foundation Service includes:

• NBD advance hardware replacement as available
• Business-hours SMB TAC access, subject to regional access levels
• SMB knowledge base access
• Online technical resources through the Smart Foundation portal
• Operating system bug fixes and patches

For presales proposals, the hardware warranty and the selected technical service level should be listed separately. The warranty does not provide the same software update, TAC, diagnostics, or replacement service scope as a contracted support offering.