BW )(: Using T-Mobile 3G Usb HE220 in a remote location.

[Matthew Edmondson]

Hey,

This is a usabilty report of TMobile usb 3G.  

I am writing this from a meeting in Bristol, fifteen 
minutes ago i was in my office, I popped my laptop in a bag and drove over to 
Easton.  I didnt loose my conneciton and remained on ICQ, ssh, IRC.  woot.  
This surely bring a whole new level to mobile working.

Using T-Mobile 3G Usb HE220 in a remote location.


Earlier in the year I purchased a 3G card for my mobile 
connectivity needs. I was pleased to find that it even worked (albeit 
slowly) from a remote location.

Location: The Doon of may, Dumfries and Galloway, DG8 9RR
18/09/07

Ubuntu - Fiesty
Thinkpad T60: Linux Kuze 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Thu Jun 7 20:19:32 UTC 
2007 i686 GNU/Linux

Phone Contract: T-Mobile Unlimited £44 pm

Power: Inverter + 240V Mains PSU.  Car Batteries from skip, old 
refurbished Wind Generator, 2x Solar. ( at most about 3 hours a day)


in previous releases of Ubuntu one had to faff around with modules because the 
device has a flash media facility from which windows users can load the 
drivers.  I have found that with kernels higher than mine (i.e. Gutsy) the 
usbstorage modules are loaded, I haven't looked at ways round this. [fixed as 
of 3/10/07]

You may need to run these commands as root.

Firstly, if the 3G modem is plugged in at boot this command:-
ls -la /dev/ttyU*

..should give you three lines...

root at Batu:~# ls -la /dev/ttyU*
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2007-09-26 16:49 /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 1 2007-09-26 16:12 /dev/ttyUSB1
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 2 2007-09-26 16:12 /dev/ttyUSB2

If so all is well and the wvdial script should work.

If there is only one line you can try:-
rmmod option
(wait 10s)
ls -la /dev/ttyU*

A wvdial script (/etc/wvdial.conf):-

Phone = *99***1#
Username = username
Password = password
Stupid Mode = 1
Dial COmmand = ATDT

[Dialer tmobile]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 460800
Init2 = ATZ
Init3 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem

#New PPPD = yes

This is run with the command wvdial tmobile.


I use the  he220stat binary to generate:

HUAWEI E220 Statistics   [q]uit

               Uptime  : 1162s
               SpeedUp : 0kB/s
               SpeedDn : 0kB/s
               Trnsfd  : 0.0MB
   ||          Recvd   : 0.2MB

    STRENGTH   Mode: (?)

The max d/l is 4kb/s

The strength varies from 2 to 4 bars.

On two bars:-
Normal web surfing is bearable.  IRC works well. IMAP is useable but not 
great.  shh is painful.  ICQ works well IF it connects.  Remote apps 
often fail, such as Google Spreadsheet, Calander.  Sometimes they work 
very slowly.

This information was cobbled together from Google.

Further Notes:
It has been a dream of mine to be able to work from the land of the 
Tinne Beag Workers Co-Operative Limited for many years now. My first 
attempt involved the front seat of a car and the landline that I had 
commissioned.  Given that I found the Toshiba Satellite Pro 420 full of 
pr0n a couple of years later, I figured that it worked well enough. 
However in my experience it was very slow indeed and usually failed 
following any lightning storm in the vicinity.  Given this area of 
Scotland outages were fairly frequent.

I heard that our exchange was the furthest in the area from the main 
exchange. It was also reputed to be one of the first digital exchanges 
and therefore unlikely to be upgraded for years.

I asked Mike about running a hacklab from the Doon Of May with Psand.  Anyone 
else interested?  Early summer 2008. 

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