BM818 sometimes comes up in some highly restricted state

More than once I've seen largely absent output of mmcli:

purism@pureos:~$ mmcli -m 0
  -------------------------
  General |      dbus path: /org/freedesktop/ModemManager1/Modem/0
  -------------------------
  System  |         device: /sys/devices/platform/soc@0/38200000.usb/xhci-hcd.3.auto/usb3/3-1/3-1.4
          |        drivers: option1, qmi_wwan
          |         plugin: Generic
          |   primary port: cdc-wdm0
          |          ports: ttyUSB0 (qcdm), ttyUSB1 (at), ttyUSB2 (at), cdc-wdm0 (qmi), 
          |                 wwan0 (net), ttyUSB3 (at)
  -------------------------
  Status  | signal quality: 0% (cached)
  -------------------------
  Modes   |      supported: allowed: any; preferred: none
          |        current: allowed: any; preferred: none
purism@pureos:~$