Hi folks, I wasn't sure if anyone had posted before about using the Vodafone USB 3G modem on Ubuntu 8.10 but I thought I'd post my findings.
I picked one up today from the local Vodafone store. The one I got was the £39 USB pen drive size dongle. It came pre-loaded with 1GB allowance (worth £15) and it also has a built in MicroSD reader (I think it's a Huawei K3565 USB modem). Another plus point for me is the fact that the data allowance doesn't expire and as I'm not expecting to use it that much it means my allowance will go a bit further. Anyway it was picked up in Ubuntu (although it didn't say it was detected, possibly because I'd used an E220 before). I went through the network manager to specity that it was a Vodafone pre-pay modem and that was all the configuration that it needed. I did find that if I selected the Vodafone connection from network manager it would try and connect and then disconnect. However clicking on it again it would pop up asking for a password. Doing a bit of searching on Vodafone's forums it appears that you need to enter web as the password. Anyway after entering the password I was connected straight away (albeit at GPRS speeds because of my patchy reception). I've yet to try any other providers SIMs on the modem. My dad has a Three modem on contract which I tried before so when I see him I'm going to try his SIM to see if that works too. I'm also considering picking up a T-Mobile SIM too if I can get a Three SIM working (I wasn't sure if these modems were locked into their specific provider like mobile phones are). So I'd say if you're looking for a cheap modem then you can't go wrong with one of these assuming you can get coverage. GPRS is pretty slow (okay for e-mail but not much else by the looks of things) but I've got higher hopes for the 3G part (I'm not expecting the quoted 7.2 Meg but I'd be happy if I can get maybe 300Kbit/sec out of it so I can browse the web and run remote control software. From what I gather too it's one of the cheapest modems out there when you consider it has £15 of credit included (so you're only paying £24 for the modem). As far as I know, O2 modems which are £29 don't include credit, and I believe the Three and T-Mobile modems are £50 on pre-pay. Anyway, hope this helps anyone who is considering picking up a mobile broadband stick. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
