Eesti Energia‘s data division Televõrk introduced a new country-wide Internet service called KÕU (“Thunder” in English).
It’s based on 450 MHz CDMA2000 1xEV-DO. Max 2 Mbps down, 144 Kbps up.
Network hardware is provided by Chinese ZTE Corporation. The main end-user device is MG478, which is a matchbox-sized USB device with an external antenna option.
It works under Linux but any on-line information is hard to find. Here are my notes.
With regards to coverage, they are recommending the (more expensive) router as you can connect a TV antenna to it and get up to 30 km from the nearest base station. A 20 cm quarter-wave (?) magnetic mount antenna is included with the USB device. There shouldn’t be a problem connecting a Yagi (they are saying a decimeter-wave TV antenna oriented vertically is OK ) if you rig up the right connector. An adapter (female SMA) is included for the car antenna.
This is what it looks like in /proc/bus/usb/devices:
T: Bus=03 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 7 Spd=12 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=19d2 ProdID=fffe Rev= 0.00 S: Manufacturer=ZTE, Incorporated S: Product=ZTE CDMA Tech C:* #Ifs= 3 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr= 0mA
Here’s what you do to set it up.
First you say (as root) that this device is a serial device:
modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfffe
After doing this, plugging in the MG478 should generate log entries referring to a new USB serial port. Like this.
Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 18 Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usbserial_generic 3-1:1.0: generic converter detected Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0 Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usbserial_generic 3-1:1.1: generic converter detected Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB1 Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usbserial_generic 3-1:1.2: generic converter detected Jul 12 15:00:37 think-uj kernel: usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB2
From syslog above you see that the modem has been attached to ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2. /dev/ttyUSB0 is the port that you need to use for setting up a PPP connection.
I am using Gnome PPP for the connection. No init strings are needed. I unchecked the “Check for carrier line” checkbox, otherwise it got an error almost immediately. The PPP connection stayed open, thus I had to disconnect the device before each try.
When setting up PPP, these are the key parameters:
User: ESN on the box
Password: cdma
Phone: #777
Modem device: /dev/ttyUSB0
Speed: 460800
A Russian guy has a page on another ZTE device, AC8700. There are pppd config files included: http://onorua.livejournal.com/12553.html
Olukorras, kus eestikeelset tehnilist (Linuxi) tuge alati napib, on tõesti eriti jätkusuutlik säärane vajalik inf inglise keeles üles riputada. Maailmale on sest tõesti palju kasu.
To WK:
I totally disagree with you.
I doubt, what estonian-speaking linux users don’t understand instructions in english.
But many of let’s say latvian/lithuanian/russian users don’t understand estonian.
So why not to write in english?
Forgot to say to author: thanks for the good how-to!
(But, unfortunately, I can’t try it myself at the moment.)
Thank you for writing in English. Do you think it would work for any CDMA2000 at 450 MHz ? I use Mandriva Linux 2008 and there is an interesting CDMA2000 service here, but the Korean modem they provide has no Linux driver.
A French living in Mongolia.
Henri,
I hope an answer 7 months later might still be useful.
The method can be used with any serial modem – looks like Linux has most USB serial chipsets covered out of the box. I suppose it would also work on any CDMA network.