rogers rocket stick

[brydong]

I'm looking for ANY links, advice, help on getting a Rogers usb rocket stick for mobile broadband access working on karmic koala. I've tried adding a connection using all the default Rogers options but that doesn't get me anywhere.

thanks,
brydon

[hansdown]

Hi brydong.

I haven't tried these, but they may help.

http://mlodecki.net/?p=55

http://dan.cognitiveflatulence.org/2...tu-and-others/

[brydong]

I tried the latter link (http://dan.cognitiveflatulence.org/2...tu-and-others/) and got as far as the detect modem in gnome-ppp. I can only get it to report no modem found.

[pdc]

looks like it is a ZTE MF636

http://www.rogers.com/web/link/wirel...iled=MF636REDR

no one is really too sure how steady Ubuntu 9.10 really is with mobile broadband;using say Network Manager

if you search on the MF636 in Ubuntu, there were various posts describing how to get it going;

eg

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ight=ZTE+MF636

and here describing the similar MF626

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ight=ZTE+MF636

I got one of these working on Mandriva2010 (gnome) and Ubuntu 9.10 using wvdial;

so I downloaded wvdial (eg sudo apt-get install wvdial)

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp...&topicid=54271

the wvdial.conf file was

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB2
Modem Type = Analog Modem
ISDN = 0
Baud = 460800
Dial Attempts = 1
Username = user
Password = pass
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = AT&F &D2 &C1
Init3 = ATS7=60 S30=0 S0=0
Init4 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","whateveryourAPNsettingsare"
Phone = *99#
Stupid Mode = 1

when I plug the mode in, it shows an icon on the desktop; I haven't got round to installing usb_modeswitch; I just right click on the icon, and select "eject" and then run

sudo wvdial

in ubuntu

[Rhubarb]

I've got to say that wvdial is very good to use, better than network manager (especially in karmic), because it works most of the time, and it seems to be able to download faster aswell.

pdc is spot on in recommending wvdial

my /etc/wvdial.conf

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
ISDN = 0
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 115200

[Dialer three]
Phone = *99#
Username = a
Password = a
Stupid Mode = 1
Baud = 7372800
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","3services"

It's much the same as pdc's wvdial.conf, with a few differences to note:

• the baud rate on mine is much higher, and doesn't cause any problems with my Huawei E160g usb dongle
• It uses /dev/ttyUSB0 rather than ttyUSB2
• 3services should be replaced to whatever your Access Point Name is
• For the service I'm currently using, a username and password is not required.
• 'three' is just the provider for the service I use - you can use any name here

To connect, simply type in:

sudo wvdial three

[pdc]

pleased to hear this worked for you; I used 3 in Oz a couple of months ago; using a Huawei 160 on easy peasy 1.1 and network manager; it was a bit unsteady; it was northern NSW;

how did you measure baud rate?
how did you pick ttyUSB0 ?

My script was copied for another WV script: hence my baud rate etc!

Maybe I edit it; or maybe the modem does its own thing anyway;

good to hear wvdial works for you; where you seemed to find ?? 9.10 was a bit unsteady with NM ???

[Rhubarb]

how did you measure baud rate?

The baud rate is simply the speed at which your computer talks with the 3G modem. Unless you set the baud rate less than your maximum throughput from your 3G internet, having a baud rate that's too high has no effect on internet speed performance.
I reached the value of 7372800 because:

• It's a multiple of 115200 - which is a typical speed that most (old) serial devices communicate at
• It's faster than my maximum actual internet connection speed on 3G
• It works

how did you pick ttyUSB0 ?

It's the first serial port that linux gives me when I plug the 3G usb modem in
It can be found thus:

tail -f /var/log/messages

Then plug in your 3G modem, and see what /dev/ttyUSBx it gives you. Usually the last /dev/ttyUSBx is unusable as it's just there to configure and access some random stuff on the unit. But the first /dev/ttyUSBx is the one that you want.
eg: "usb 1-4: GSM modem (1-port)converter now attached to ttyUSB0"
Press Ctrl + c to exit tail.

good to hear wvdial works for you; where you seemed to find ?? 9.10 was a bit unsteady with NM ???

9.10's network manager only worked successfully around 1/7 of the time for me. - When it did work, my maximum download speed was 160kB/s

Now using wvdial, I get atleast 250kB/s when downloading stuff from the internet.

All though very occasionally (around 1 in 10, maybe more) my wvdial doesn't work as ubuntu didn't detect /dev/ttyUSB0.
- easily solved by pulling it out and putting the 3G modem back in again.

I've also found with recent updates to 9.04 the network manager ceases to work with my 3G modem too (wvdial works fine here too).

Also, if using wvdial, note that the empathy IM client won't work.
This is easily fixed:
[SOLVED] empathy/pidgin and other programs dont detect wvdial ..

... And finally, I'd worked all this out by looking at the Arch Linux forums, where they've got some info about wvdial.
- I had installed and used Arch with wvdial around 4 months ago. Everything worked beautifully, and I'm rather impressed by wmii (tiling window manager). But an update managed to take down X, and changed my keyboard layout to qwerty (I'm a dvorak typist) - which was the last straw for me. I'll probably go back to using Arch soonish again

[brydong]

I'll try some of these this evening, thanks! For those who have tried this, do you need an actual username and password as I have nothing like that.

[Rhubarb]

... do you need an actual username and password as I have nothing like that.

No username or password is required (well, atleast with "3" in Australia anway).
As *I think* wvdial requires a username and password, I just give it "a" for both of these fields. And it works fine for me.

[brydong]

The actual device I'm working with is a Sony Ericcson MD400G