USB 3G mobile broadband support in Linux

[audiovoodoo]

This may be a bit of a UK specific question.

I'm presently in shared accomodation and paying through the nose for broadband access due to the landlord signing up to a crappy capped bandwidth connection. How the hell he expects 4 of us to survive on a 5Gb per month allowance I do not know. We get charged for each additional gig of data we pull down. Having looked at this months bill I'm wanting to do something aobut it and establish my own connection. Seeing as I may not be here for long getting another phone line installed is not really an option plus it ties me into a fixed contract that I could do without.

I've been seeing the adverts for a number of UK mobile phone operators mobile broadband offerings and see that you can now get a USB dongle that allows for a 2Mbps link, best of all these are now available on pre-pay packages. For my usage they would probably be fine but as usual nobody is able to tell me if their solution will work with Linux. All the operators seem to be using the same physical HW and I just wondered if anybody has read anything about linux support for these things.

Any input much appreciated...

 

[linux_0]

Some of these may require windoz only drivers :-(

It's hard to predict if it will work or not without actually trying it.

I've done it here in the US but I'm not familiar with UK equipment.

Before you buy anything maybe you can borrow one from a friend or colleague and try it.

On this side of the pond wireless providers also offer PCMCIA cards that provide connectivity, one of those may work better than a USB device.

Sorry wan't much help

GL

 

[audiovoodoo]

I don't know anybody with one but I'll have a trawl of the UK broadband forums and see if anybody has any more information. The PCMCIA option would be better but on my desktop I just dont have a connection to stick it into. I've also wondered about taking the hit and getting a decent phone that would let me use it as a BB modem as my present one only supports GPRS which in this day and age is just not going to cut it for my surfing habbits..

 

[linux_0]

You could get a PCMCIA interface card for your desktop ( PCI to PCMCIA ).

The PCMCIA cards usually offer greatly improved performance over USB with a phone.

 

[MrLinux]

Be VERY carefull with mobile data packages in the UK; as a good example T-Mobile's £4.00 per day unlimited down-load package actualy has a 3Gig per month "fail useage" limit; also the down-load rate is "up-to" 2Meg, the actual rate will almost always be a lot less.

 

[hans51]

The easiest way I have used since several years with Linux and 3G mobile is to insert the 3G provider SIM into a 3G capable smartphone such as N95/N97 or my current N900 and then connect my laptop via bluetooth - smartphone to Internet.

The connection usually works out of the box using default KNetworkManager which then has a Mobile Broadband tab for the configuration.

That seems until these very days the easiest way to use Mobile Broadband 3G/3.5G