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Anyone know how mobile broadband dongles work?

To that end anyone recommend a phone, pref not on the "3" network, that can be used as a modem for connecting to a PC rather than a stand alone dongle?..

Reply to
tony sayer
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In message , at

16:24:41 on Fri, 17 Apr 2009, The Real Doctor remarked:

Fallback seems to work OK on my "3" dongle.

Reply to
Roland Perry

If you can cope with plain 3G/UMTS, the Nokia 7600 is cheap secondhand and dead easy to unlock (but I've never actually used one). I don't know a good HSDPA phone. Of course if you have a phone you might then decide you want to use the phoney features and want a slightly better model.

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

Thanks Theo .. noted...

Reply to
tony sayer

to 2G? or to 3G?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I'll guess that it's the dongle which gets banned, not the SIM. My Nokia 6120c on Three does data no problems via GPRS - ie on Orange.

Ian

Reply to
The Real Doctor

Nokia 6120c works fine as a modem.

Ian

Reply to
The Real Doctor

Very odd, because as far as I can see it shouldn't. I'd keep quiet about it, if I were you ...

Ian

Reply to
The Real Doctor

In message , at 20:11:30 on Sat, 18 Apr

2009, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

I'm 99% sure it's to 2.5G, but I'll have to do some tests.

My recollection is that while it doesn't work at all on the train to London most of the time, there are some stations in the Market Harborough area where I can get a sniff of something that's slow and doesn't come up as "3G". But next time I'll pay more attention to the display. There's also the issue of "dropping tunnels" which doesn't happen when it switches from 3G to HSDPA, so surely it must be switching from 3G to 2G (or more precisely 2.5G).

I've been trying to find something that documents the LED - surprisingly difficult to find. Seems to be:

Steady Blue - HSDPA Flashing Blue - 3G ??? - 2.5G

I can't check it at the moment as I get 5-bars of HSDPA at home !

Reply to
Roland Perry

"I remember a petrol station somewhere around her*SPLAT*"

Jon

Reply to
Jon Green

You should try to get verbose logging turned on so you can see the PPP transactions in the log. I've included a successful

3 log in below. Note that I did without authentication (the network wanted to do PAP, my PPP client declined) but the network didn't care.

The interface and DNS addresses come from PPP IPCP configuration. It appears to me that the network just does the LCP configuration mechanically (that would include PAP/CHAP) and doesn't actually decide whether they are going to let you on until you get to IPCP negotiations, this based on the 6 second pregnant pause after the first IPCP configuration request is sent where the network appears to be "thinking" about it.

It isn't faking the PPP locally (as, in the dongle), and it has whatever radio signal it is going to use for the connection well before it gets to this point. It does seem, however, that the authentication is meaningless and the start of IP configuration is when the network actually decides whether it is going to let you on or not. In your case it might have decided not to let you on, or something else might have failed. A verbose log might give you some hints.

Dennis Ferguson

16:18:56 : CCLWrite : AT\13 16:18:56 : CCLMatched : OK\13\10 16:18:56 : Initializing phone: AT&F0&D2&C1E0V1W1S95=47 16:18:56 : CCLWrite : AT&F0&D2&C1E0V1W1S95=47\13 16:18:56 : CCLMatched : OK\13\10 16:18:56 : Initializing PDP context: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","three.co.uk" 16:18:56 : CCLWrite : AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","three.co.uk"\13 16:18:56 : CCLMatched : OK\13\10 16:18:56 : Dialing: ATD*99***1# 16:18:56 : CCLWrite : ATD*99***1#\13 16:18:56 : Waiting for connection 16:18:56 : CCLMatched : CONNECT\13\10 16:18:56 : Connection established 16:18:59 : CCLExit: 0 16:18:59 : Serial connection established. 16:18:59 : using link 0 16:18:59 : Using interface ppp0 16:18:59 : Connect: ppp0 /dev/cu.usbmodem411 16:19:00 : sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : No auth is possible 16:19:00 : lcp_reqci: returning CONFREJ. 16:19:00 : sent [LCP ConfRej id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x2 ] 16:19:00 : lcp_reqci: returning CONFACK. 16:19:00 : sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x2 ] 16:19:00 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : sent [IPV6CP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:00 : rcvd [LCP ProtRej id=0x1 80 57 01 01 00 0e 01 0a 02 23 32 ff fe b0 f4 1e] 16:19:03 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:06 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] 16:19:06 : rcvd [IPCP ConfNak id=0x1 ] 16:19:06 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2 ] 16:19:06 : rcvd [IPCP ConfAck id=0x2 ] 16:19:06 : rcvd [IPCP ConfReq id=0x3 ] 16:19:06 : ipcp: returning Configure-ACK 16:19:06 : sent [IPCP ConfAck id=0x3 ] 16:19:06 : ipcp: up 16:19:06 : local IP address 10.15.137.253 16:19:06 : remote IP address 192.168.100.101 16:19:06 : primary DNS address 172.31.140.69 16:19:06 : secondary DNS address 172.30.140.69
Reply to
Dennis Ferguson

I have a verbose log and posted it.

Basically it refuses IPCP negotiations forever, just issuing 'fake' ones which it then rejects.

My conclusion is that although its found (*presumably an Orange 2G) it wont do PPP over it.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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