[clug] OT: very short term wifi broadband?

[Ian Bardsley]

G'Day all

Thought I would just add to this original post for the benefit of anyone 
else who may be looking at mobile broadband.

Based on Carlo's experience, I too purchased The Telstra package but had 
a couple of annoying issues with the functionality.

Despite an evening of Googling and trying a variety of set ups, my 
device refused to "Hot Plug".  The only way that I could get a 
connection was to plug in the USB dongle and reboot.  After this 
process, network manager would show the device as connected but I was 
unable to browse to the outside world until I had disconnected and 
reconnected sometimes 2 and occasionally 3 times.  Whilst not a critical 
issue,  I found this behaviour a little annoying (me not being a 
tolerant person). 

So I decided to look into the Mobile Broadband issue further and 
stumbled upon Betavines's support for Vodafone's mobile broadband 
service.  This organisation is offering open source drivers in support 
of Vodafones range of hardware including software that emulates the 
Windoze approach of providing software that manages connection and other 
features.  
http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/resources/datacards/os/ubuntu . 
<http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/resources/datacards/os/ubuntu>  will 
get you to the detail of this.

I therefor returned to Telstra package to the place of purchase and 
after some argument obtained a refund.  I then purchased a Vodafone 
prepaid mobile broadband package, which was cheaper at $79 with 1 Gb of 
download and a more favourable set of recharge options.

Following the guide provided in the above link I now have a fully 
functional mobile broadband facility that hot plugs,  retains the 
ability to emulate a USB memory stick and connects and disconnects on 
demand.  The software also monitors usage and provides a bargraph of 
usage for both the current and previous month. neat!

With this, I am now a happy little Vegemite.  So if mobile broadband is 
on your horizon,  add this little package to your research.  It may just 
save you a little annoyance.

Have a great week

Regards

Ian Bardsley



Carlo Hamalainen wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Grant Morphett <grant at gmorph.com> wrote:
>   
>> How much did it all cost in the end?  How long did you sign up for?
>>     
>
> The Telstra NextG prepaid thing from Dick Smith is $99 for the USB
> modem and it includes 1Gb of data. It has no contract but the minimum
> top up is $20, and if the modem doesn't get topped up in a six month
> period then it gets deactivated. I don't know what reactivation
> entails. There is also some issue about credit from a one month period
> not rolling over to the next month unless you do a top up. These
> details are from when I activated over the phone (need a driver's
> license/passport/etc but no credit card) so you should read the
> Telstra site in more detail:
>
> http://www.telstra.com.au/bigpond_internet/rates.html
>
> Speed and connectivity has been great (in Brisbane at the moment).
>
>