Wireless Internet, non 802.11

Someone brought a PC Card to the last Seattle Wireless hacknight. A few times since I’ve been stuck without internet. I do have a USB cable for my nokia phone, but my phone is without many features and even the “medianet” is broken, likely since I’ve moved and haven’t upgraded the service configuration since I lived in Maine, but kept the same phone. Getting the account switched was a hassle by the way and if you ever need to do this, stand in a cingular store (an offical one, not a reseller) until it’s complete.

Cingular says they have UMTS coverage in Seattle, and lists the following cards in their store:
Sierra Wireless Aircard 860
Novatel U730
Option GT Max
Sony Ericsson GC83 (Refurb)

There’s some information on Sierra Wireless’s website about hacking the earlier version of their card for Linux, but nothing about the new one. There is a note in this cingular forum where someone got the Aircard working in Linux (the forum is about getting these cards working in OSX however). Does anyone have UMTS experience with Cingular? If it just comes down to being a serial device that emulates AT commands and you use PPP, it should work with anything, but I’ve never touched one before.

6 thoughts on “Wireless Internet, non 802.11

  1. maddocks

    My phone is us cellular but all I needed was a $55 usb cable and some AT command knowledge. To bad Maine doesnt have internet thru Cellular:( Anyway I’m curious, I love my Itronix laptops (yes plural) They have cellular modems one is made by RIM (of blackberry fame) but I cant find a single provider for this modem. Piss me off. I know this was sorta off topic but maybe it helped. Or someone will say Ben this company will sell you internet for your Itronix.

  2. btm

    I get strange errors with cables in ubuntu. I haven’t really played with it yet much. I know southern maine had something, Jason used to have it a long time ago, but I can’t even recall what it was. For his palm pilot.

  3. l0k1

    I’m going to install Ubuntu on my laptop today, have either of you played with WPA2 on them yet? Orinoco won’t do it, but the Netgear should. Of course, I have a friend who uses Ubuntu with WPA2 with the same WG511T card I have, and all he has are complaints.

  4. btm

    I installed Ubuntu Dapper from current a week or so ago. I have not used WPA2 with the Netgear, which I’m all but convinced it is broken at this point. I did successfully using WPA with wpa_supplicant.

    The orinoco is supposed to do WPA, but you have to compile agere’s modules with wpa_supplicant I believe. wpa_supplicant says it supports agere, but says something about it not being configured when I try to run it at this time.

  5. agwn

    i got the card working with debian/testing 2.6.15 kernel and udev.

    had to do two things beyond the avilable instructions.

    rename
    /lib/firmware/SW_8xx_SER.cis
    to
    /lib/firmware/SW_7xx_SER.cis

    and add the a udev rule (all one line)

    BUS==”pcmcia”, SYSFS{prod_id1}==”Sierra Wireless”, SYSFS{prod_id2}==”AC860″, NAME=”modem”

    hope this works for you.

  6. jamie [eixb]

    i wrote a mac os x driver for the aircard 860 after being frustrated by the prospect of paying someone else $99 for their commercial driver.

    it’s available free at:
    http://www.auralogic.com/3g/
    and has been tested on 10.3.9-10.4.6

    feel free to contact me with any questions – my email address is on the linked site.

    [shamelessbeg] and of course, donations are welcome! [/shamelessbeg]

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