[SOLVED] HowTo set up EVDO card or usb enabled phone(CDMA)

[indiepop]

thank you for this how-to. i actually am running OpenSuSE and i have been having a hellatious time with this whole process. one thing i keep running into is that after adding wvdial to my startup, the computer boots up and seems to connect with my phone-as-modem; however, until i fool with the network manager, kill wvdial, and restart it, it doesn't seem to hold.

is there something wrong with the way my system is handling networking that could be causing this, i.e. should i kill the network manager applet? if yes, how do i go about getting it back when i need to connect wirelessly/wired to a standard network?

thanks a bunch!

[FlyingHat]

This is a very good HOWTO, I especially enjoy using wvdial versus having to come up with your own PPPD scripts.

However, using usbserial for these EVDO connections is a BAD, repeat BAD idea. usbserial was not designed for high-speed connections such as EVDO connections.

Since kernel 2.6.18, the Airprime driver has been patched to allow full-speed EVDO connections. Essentially, instead of using usbserial, simply type in the following:

:~$ modprobe airprime

And then check dmesg to see if it was loaded correctly. You should see something like:

[ 1618.912000] usbcore: registered new interface driver airprime

And after inserting the device:

[ 1620.504000] usb usb6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1620.504000] hub 6-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 1620.504000] hub 6-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[ 1621.884000] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[ 1622.096000] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1622.096000] cdc_acm 5-1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

Follow the rest of the walkthrough. If it looks like it's connecting, go ahead and add airprime to /etc/modules or type in:

:~$ sudo depmod -a

Try it!

[Mach1US]

This is a very good HOWTO, I especially enjoy using wvdial versus having to come up with your own PPPD scripts.

However, using usbserial for these EVDO connections is a BAD, repeat BAD idea. usbserial was not designed for high-speed connections such as EVDO connections.

Since kernel 2.6.18, the Airprime driver has been patched to allow full-speed EVDO connections. Essentially, instead of using usbserial, simply type in the following:

Thanks for the input , I'll definitely try it and post back the result but can you shoot little more info on the subject especially that theinternal serial USB hubs using usbserial driver which are used as USB host controller interface to expose kernel to a serial device , at least those newer ones (2.0) are capable of bus speeds at 480 Mbps where EVDO connection averages at around 1 Mbps which is very small fraction of the overall throughput capabilities of this particular type of a bus .
Except for default 1500 MTU size not being natively managed by your device there is nothing i could find that would impede data transfers.
I'll really appreciate if you could provide more detail on the issue.


To Indiepop

thank you for this how-to. i actually am running OpenSuSE and i have be
en having a hellatious time with this whole process. one thing i keep running into is that after adding wvdial to my startup, the computer boots up and seems to connect with my phone-as-modem; however, until i fool with the network manager, kill wvdial, and restart it, it doesn't seem to hold.

is there something wrong with the way my system is handling networking that could be causing this, i.e. should i kill the network manager applet? if yes, how do i go about getting it back when i need to connect wirelessly/wired to a standard network?

thanks a bunch!

The Network Manager applet does not like to play with any configurations created by other apps or system config utilities.
the first thing i would try to edit out all instances from its interface configuration file.
The file is located at:

 sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

First make a backup of that file and then comment it all out except for your wi-fi wep or other encription keys and paste the following:

 auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

let me know if you need more help with that.

[Mach1US]

My connection test result using standard usbserial driver :

I am getting average speeds between 1.1Mbps and 1.4Mbps

[who_cares]

has anyone managed to get this to work with Cingular/At&t?
When I try to run wvdial I get "NO CARRIER" after "ATDT #777"

[Mach1US]

Make sure your dialer script is configured properly and make you have configured correct serial device ( /dev/ttyUSB??? ) to be used by wvdial.
You can check it by inserting and removing your card and running dmesg which will display your devices serial identifier and then you will need to correct it in the wvdial config script, you should see something similar :

m@m:~$ dmesg
    ...   omitted output 
[17186692.460000] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 2 choices
[17186692.460000] cdc_acm 3-1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[17186708.176000] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 4
[17186714.588000] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address

To edit wvdial script type in terminal :

 sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

Dialer scripts in this how to will work on all standard carrier networks so i don't see why it wouldn't work with cingular / AT&T systems.

[who_cares]

I think I have the correct serial device (dev/ttyACM0)
I messed with the config file and got this far:

root@ubuntu:~# wvdial
--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
--> Cannot get information for serial port.
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
--> Modem initialized.
--> Sending: ATDT*99#
--> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT*99#
CONNECT
--> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Sun Jun 17 01:46:34 2007
--> Pid of pppd: 10633
--> Using interface ppp0
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> pppd:
--> [06][08]0[0f][06][08]
--> Disconnecting at Sun Jun 17 01:46:35 2007
--> The PPP daemon has died: A modem hung up the phone (exit code = 16)
--> man pppd explains pppd error codes in more detail.
--> Try again and look into /var/log/messages and the wvdial and pppd man pages for more information.
--> Auto Reconnect will be attempted in 5 seconds
--> Cannot get information for serial port.
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
--> Modem initialized.
Caught signal 2: Attempting to exit gracefully...
--> Disconnecting at Sun Jun 17 01:46:37 2007

I'm not really sure what I'd need to change in my config file to fix that though.

[stonecutter]

I'm trying to get my Dell 5700 minipc Broadband card to work. When I run wvdial it kicks out

CONNECT
--> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Sat Jun 16 23:11:19 2007
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/pap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) may be flaky.
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/chap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> CHAP (Challenge Handshake) may be flaky.
--> Pid of pppd: 11249
--> Using interface ppp0

then it lists an IP and DNS, pretty sure it's Verizon IP. But then I cannot browse to the Internet.

from my dmesg, I can't really tell which USB device it's attached to.

[ 3360.916000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial

[ 3360.916000] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic

[ 3361.008000] usbserial_generic 3-2:1.0: generic converter detected

[ 3361.008000] usb 3-2: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0

[ 3361.008000] usbserial_generic 3-2:1.1: generic converter detected

[ 3361.008000] usb 3-2: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB1

[ 3361.008000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic

[ 3361.008000] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core

When I turn off my WLAN radio and run wvdial, it says No Carrier! Trying Again. Any thoughts as to what I need to look at?
thanks.

[Mach1US]

TO STONECUTTER your card is probably working correctly all you need to do is to restart the system , connect with EVDO making sure no other internet connection is interfering and then open the browser and all should work.
TO WHO_CARES
I'v haven't encountered this problem yet but it definitely looks like pppd isn't going through or can not receive keepalives or replays from your carier but luckily you are getting exit code = 16 and man page ( open terminal and type man pppd and look for error codes ) can point you in the right direction .

[who_cares]

all the man page says about exit code 16 is that it means the modem hung up.
I'm not sure if my phone hung up or if cingular cut the connection from their end though.
Any ideas on how to get the modem to not hang up?