[OT] Huawei E585 MIFI dongle

[Tim Watts]

Hi,

I've got one from "3" for use on the 90 train ride to London (3 are the only operator that even remotely works south of Tunbridge Wells).

It works pretty well when it's static, but our line has an ungodly number of tunnels (about half a dozen).

The problem with the E585 is that whilst it reacquires the 3G signal quickly, it is prone to dropping the IP link and not re-establishing it without a reboot (web pages shows WAN IP stuck at 0.0.0.0).

I have not yet found out how to hack into the telnet port and dive inside, but I was wondering if anyone knew of possible hacks that might help?

I did try talking to the bloke in the 3 shop in Charing Cross, ended up ringing their call center and having a stroppy argument with an indian religiously going through their script. Did establish eventually there are no firmware updates available over my current version...

If I cannot fix this, I might be tempted to get the 3G enabler module for my laptop and stick the SIM in there (it already has the socket and wiring) - I can probably get better behaviour under linux. But that's another 100 quid to do that.

Cheers

Tim

[dennis]

The stack doesn't run on the dongle does it? It would be a function of the stack to re-establish an address. What OS are you running (linux as mentioned latter)?

You could do a bodge to release and renew the IP address using a script (don't forget the ! if its a linux shell, its easy to do).

[Tim Watts]

Yes - it is a self contained MIFI (3G->WIFI-AP) device.

Linux, but that is not relevant.

Believe me, if the problem was within the remit of my laptop's OS, I would have solved it. One of the reasons I now have a pure ADSL modem (not router) at home - the PPP endpoint is terminated on a stack I control, and is thus hugely more reliable and quicker to tear down and restart when needs be (I have a ping script which watched out for connectivity problems).

[dennis]

Yes, I have now had time to have a quick look. It appears from a couple of unverified posts that the dongle runs linux, you may be able to get the source.

You could trade it in for an Android phone and use the built in WiFi/3g router.

[Mike Tomlinson]

Oh, the irony.

[Weatherlawyer]

My laptop borked yesterday. (Following that missing T thread. ANyone know if there is aa virus that would have done it thataway or was it just a crappy second hand unit?)

Anyway I dug out my PC and plugged it all in. I xcouldn't find how to get the internet connection running. It turned outto be a nicon on the top of the screen.

It loads a lot faster and with no quirks and loserisms. Vista on the laptop was a crock of sh... to get up and running with 3. (To get up and running generally.)

However there is still the problem of dropped connections when the train goes through a tunnel. What do you suppose he meant by Linux costing =A3100?

[Tim Watts]

Not linux mate - the 3G modem module for my Lenovo T410i costs £100.

The laptop is "mobile-internet ready" meaning it has a SIM socket and a bit of wire, but you have to buy the expensive bit and plug it in...

It also true that with an Android phone I might get more control too. That's on the cards next March when my O2 contract (and the free refurb iPhone 3G) is up for grabs.

Because O2 is a sack of shit south of London, I could probably save a packet by going fully to 3 for voice and data.

Just need to find a nice Android phone now...

[dennis]

I know. Its this keyboard i am using.. I keep pressing the ctrl key when i am aiming for the left shift. its OK for most things as the speil chucker finds it. However for some things like "i" and the beginning of sentences it doesn't say anything and I am useless at proof reading. funny enough ctrl+1 gives "", while shift+1 gives "!". At least the speil chucker gets "geof" right and replaces it with "goof" if I press the wrong button.