How to – UK Three Mobile (3), Huawei E220 and Ubuntu Hardy
After a recent price drop of a three mobile Huawei E220 HSDPA modem at £49.99 and a quick Google to tell me that it is supported by Kernel 2.6.20 onwards, I decided to make the purchase.
On the web there are a few forum and blog posts providing instructions on how to configure this modem using wvdial for various mobile networks worldwide. However, I am going to explain the process to get your Huawei E220 working on Ubuntu Hardy for the UK Three Mobile Network using a graphical tool “Gnome PPP”. As Gnome PPP is a graphical front end tool to wvdial, it is a lot tidier then having to keep a terminal window open as it can be docked to the notification area.
There is a bit of information on the web regarding a problem with the airprime Kernel module and the Kernel trying to initialize this device as usb storage and I have found a couple of bash scripts to overcome these problems. However, the easiest way to get the E220 to work is to plug it into your computer before you turn it on and it will work perfectly. I have no idea why this makes any difference but it does.
First you will have to install gnome-ppp package either by Synaptic or by the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-ppp
Once installed open GNOME PPP from APPLICATIONS » INTERNET
Three Mobile does not require a user name or password to connect so I just used the values “username” and “password”, also enter the phone number which is *99#. Click “Setup” so we can configure this device.
For the modem device click “Detect” and it should select device /dev/ttyUSB0. Change speed to 115200, click on “Init Strings” and enter in the value below for “Init 2″:
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
On the “Options” tab you will need to enble “Ignore termail strings (stupid mode)”
Before you can connect to the internet using your USB modem, you will have to disable networking using Network Manager otherwise your applications will not use this device for internet connections. To do this right click the Network Manger applet in the Notification Area and untick “Enable Networking”.
That should be it. Click “Connect” button in Gnome PPP and it will dial you onto the network with Three Mobile. If you disabled networking in Network Manager, Firefox may have switched into offline mode so you will have to switch back to get it to work by unticking “work offline” in Firefox File menu . If you are a pay as you go user and you do not have any credit, then you will only be allowed to access the Three website.
Works perfectly! Thanks.