Configuring USB 3G Modem on Linux

I was in the process of configuring my USB 3G broadband modem with my Linux boxes and was interested to
find out all about Linux's USB serial interface and drivers etc. So I've kind of assimilated all the
information below along with the links for those of you who want to read them.

Its fairly simple to configure any (or most) of the USB modems in Linux.
But you'll need to know some details about it first. You would need to find out

- Username (this could be your SIM card's phone number)
- Password (this could be your SIM card's phone number)
- Phone Number (which number to dial to #777 or *99# something like that)

NOTE : For Airtel it is *99# and for Reliance it is #777.

Before you connect you will need to write /etc/wvdial.conf You can read the man
page of wvdial.conf and write everything by hand or run "sudo wvdialconf" on your
computer. Linux probes for details of the device and generates wvdial.conf with
some information. It could look like something below --

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
; Phone = <Target Phone Number>
ISDN = 0
; Username = <Your Login Name>
Init1 = ATZ
; Password = <Your Password>
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 9600

You will then need to fill up the rest of the details such as (a sample) -

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
CBaud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = *99#
New PPPD = yes
ISDN = 0
Username = <Your Username>
Password = <Your Password>
Baud = 9600

Save and quit the above file and then run "sudo wvdial" with the device plugged
and you should be online after that.

Some internal information -

USB modem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem)

"USB wireless modem use a USB port on the laptop instead of a PC card or
ExpressCard slot. Most of the wireless modems come with an integrated SIM
cardholder (Huawei E220, Sierra 881, etc.) and some models also provided a
microSD memory slot and/or jack for additional external antenna such as Huawei
E1762 and Sierra Wireless Compass 885.

USB modems work in Linux with kernel versions 2.6.20 and greater. Its development
started in 2.5. This article on Linux Journal explains about USB Serial implementation
in the linux kernel in detail.

It needs support for /dev/ttyUSB* devices. See this link in wikipedia for more
information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei_E220. You can use wvdial
to connect via this USB modem.

wvdial (See wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wvdial) is a dial-up
utility available for Linux OSes. 

wvdial initializes the modem and executes the dial up instructions based on
what is specified in wvdial.conf (See man wvdial.conf) to find out what to
write in that file. Or you can plugin the USB modem and run wvdialconf
(as root or sudo) and that detects and generates the /etc/wvdial.conf file.

RESOURCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem

https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=19171

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wvdial#cite_note-0

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_3G_Modem

http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/usb/usb-serial.txt

http://www.linux-usb.org/

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6434?page=0,2

http://www.linux-usb.org/devices.html

http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/USB_SERIAL.html
Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.