[clug] Virgin Mobile Broadband with Linux Huawei E220

[Robert Edwards]

So, what is the best offering in Canberra at the moment for
wireless broadband? I currently (still) have a Veritel/BigAir
wireless modem, which seems to be a bit expensive and not as
fast as some of the newer offerings.

Issues I am interested in (others may have other issues to add?):
  - coverage
  - price (/GB etc)
  - speed
  - latency (to various random domestic and O/S sites)
  - uptime (availability)

I think the offerings are:
  - Telstra
  - Optus
  - Virgin Mobile
  - Veritel/BigAir

any others?

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

Hal Ashburner wrote:
> Hello Clug,
> Virgin mobile broadband was slightly more of a hassle to work through than I
> was expecting so i just want to make these notes discoverable on the
> interweb for the next person. I did this on debian stable and again on sid -
> I imgaine most of it translates to other distros and BSD ok. Do yell at me
> if I'm wrong about that, I am interested.
> 
> Right so you plug in the usb modem, a huawei E220 and you want it to be
> represented by /dev/ttyUSB0
> on BSD the device file would already be there, so (I guess) ensure the
> relevant usbserial driver is loaded?
> on linux using udev we can ensure the kernel modules are loaded when it's
> plugged in.
> 1. Add a file /etc/udev/rules.d/50-huawei.rules
> 
> SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idProduct}=="1003", SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1",
> RUN+="/sbin/modprobe option"
> SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idProduct}=="1003", SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1",
> RUN+="/sbin/modprobe ppp_async"
> 
> "option" is the relevant usbserial driver on linux
> 
> 2. create a file /etc/ppp/chat-E220
> 
> ABORT BUSY
> ABORT ERROR
> ABORT 'NO CARRIER'
> REPORT CONNECT
> TIMEOUT 10
> "" "ATZ"
> OK AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","VirginBroadband"
> OK "ATE1V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2"
> OK "AT+IPR=115200"
> OK "ATE1"
> TIMEOUT 60
> "" "ATD*99#"
> CONNECT \c
> 
> 3. create a file /etc/ppp/peers/E220
> debug
> /dev/ttyUSB0
> crtscts
> #modem
> refuse-chap
> require-pap
> noauth
> nodetach
> defaultroute
> noipdefault
> noccp
> nobsdcomp
> novj
> user "irrelevant"
> password "irrelevant"
> /usr/sbin/chat -s -S -V -f /etc/ppp/chat-E220-nopin'
> 
> 
> of particular interest there, and where virgin seem to differ from 3 mobile
> and the other providers using this modem is
> refuse-chap
> require-pap
> without those your modem logs will show you everything you expect on
> initialisation but it will then mysteriously hang up on you.
> without giving some string for user and password it also seems to
> mysteriously not work despite that fact it doesn't seem to matter what.
> 
> 
> 4. at the prompt
> pon E220
> 
> poff E220 to turn it off.
> 
> I Hope that saves someone some time.
>