[SLUG] Optus broadband stick
I have been lent a Huawei mobile HSPA USB stick which is supposed to have 5 months' worth of unlimited data on it via Optus GSM. I had a look; it is a hybrid device which wants you to run its install.exe before first use. Can it be used on Linux somehow, please? What sort of data speeds might it get in good areas? Jim Donovan -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Optus broadband stick
which model is it? this will dictate 3.6 or 7.2 meg max (dual frequency) huawei modems typical appear as two usb serial devices. the first for data, the second provides a control plane of sorts. both use a classic hayes 'AT' like command set, and ppp is used to create an ip connection with the modem. network-manager since about 18 months ago was perfectly able to fully configure and manage usb 3g devices from huawei. google will show you many chat scripts for various ppp helpers if network-manager is not your ice cream flavor. huawei have been very good at keeping a consistent command set so scripts for other huaei models will almost certainly work perfectly if your kernel recognises the device properly. ive found huawei support in linux to be excellent, mostly as a result of using a simple interfacing technique and being consistent. Dean On 29/01/2011, at 4:02 PM, Jim Donovan j...@aptnsw.org.au wrote: I have been lent a Huawei mobile HSPA USB stick which is supposed to have 5 months' worth of unlimited data on it via Optus GSM. I had a look; it is a hybrid device which wants you to run its install.exe before first use. Can it be used on Linux somehow, please? What sort of data speeds might it get in good areas? Jim Donovan -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Optus broadband stick
Hybrid USB broadband sticks can generally be used on Linux. Here's how (instructions for Debian, adjust them to whatever you use): 1. aptitude install usb-modeswitch wvdial wvdial is optional, but the alternative is Network Manager which some of us despise. usb-modeswitch is a program to change the mode of the hybrid device to broadband modem. Once usb-modeswitch is installed, you should be able to plug the device in and have it just work with Network Manager, or else do the following to make it work with wvdial: 2. Edit your /etc/wvdial.conf to contain the following: [Dialer Defaults] Init1 = ATZ Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 C1 D2 +FCLASS=0 Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,IP,vfprepaymbb Stupid Mode = 1 Modem Type = Analog Modem ISDN = 0 New PPPD = yes Phone = *99# Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0 Username = vfprepaymbb Password = vfprepaymbb Baud = 9600 This is for Vodafone, but I assume something similar is required for Optus. 3. Now you should be able to run (as root) wvdial , wait for it to connect, and then close the terminal window (the lets you do this without disconnecting). It's been a while since I've done this, so I may have inadvertently omitted something. Let me know if you're having issues, and I can come on #slug and help you troubleshoot. With regard to data speeds, I think mine got up to ~200 MB/s at the best of times, but fluctuated a *lot*. Hope it works out, Steven McDonald. signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
