Using DUN with Meteor To Go (and others)

carveone

I'd like to know can I use standard Dial-Up-Networking, under Windows, for connections to midband services, most of which use the Huawei USB dongles. Has anyone done this?

From looking briefly at a machine, the Huawei shows up as a modem. So, I'd get the impression that using standard DUN, the phone number set to *99#and any appropriate PPP name/password should work. Looking at posts on boards.ie, there are various APN names mentioned. I thought that was just for GPRS, but I'm not sure where that setting would go anyway!

Why not just plug in the modem and do what everyone else does? Well, firstly, I have AutoRun turned off (Conficker, hello?!) and I'm not logged in as admin (yes, I know I'd need to be to install the modem drivers, that's ok).

Plus I've had bad experiences in the past with dial up - every provider had yet another CD with yet another pointless VB dialer and yet another dumb version of IE (some of which force installed). So, frankly I don't trust them anymore! Why install a massive thick VB.NET app that reproduces windows functionality...

I did ask about this in two Meteor shops. First didn't know what I was talking about ("you just plug it in"). Second said "You have to be admin. This isn't meant for business use" and gave me a help number to dial (which was wrong). Sheesh. I guess everyone is supposed to be running as admin...

carveone

Oh. Actually I think I can answer half of that myself! The APN may be set in an AT hayes modem command. Which makes sense. You can set that in the Advanced section of the modem properties dialog. Maybe I should send Meteor an email :rolleyes:

Added: You may think I'm nuts, but you do need to know this information anyway if you want to use Linux.

Anyway, this looks to be the relevant AT command with the Meteor APN. There's no PPP name/password:

AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","broadband.mymeteor.ie"

From some googling, it does seem that you have to run the installer on a Windows PC anyway to get the device to enable. I don't know why...

corkie

You seem to have answered your own question's there?

Just trying to figure out where your stuck?

Have you the correct APN for broadband to go with meteor?

From some googling, it does seem that you have to run the installer on a Windows PC anyway to get the device to enable. I don't know why..

That is to get your device registered and initialized on their network. I believe their is AT strings as well you can use to do that. I have re-initialized device's under linux using that method before when performance has dropped on the device. Sorry can't remember the strings I used. Haven't had the need to do it in a while.

Link to a command set for the Hauwei E220 for setting up wvdial.conf in linux.

At least the Latest NetworkManager under linux takes care of most of these now!



Regards,
J.

watty

All EDGE/3G/HSDPA modems actually "really" use DUN after they are installed. You can even connect via the DUN icon instead of the fancy control panel.

It's really just fast Dialup networking, hence loss of session if the connection breaks, unlike real broadband.

Jonathan

I was part of the trial group for meteor broadband. I refused to use the service because to top up and activate your month pass you have to send a text from the modem. This requires the mobile connect software. I lobbied for a web gateway to manage your account or if this wasn't possible, a USSD interface would have been sufficient.

If it wasn't for that, there would be no need for their software at all.


You can disable the fake cd drive partition on the modem using utilities that can be found here.

If you just need the drivers, and don't want to install the junkware, I have extracted the drivers from the install package and zipped them here.

While DUN will work fine, this little app makes life much easier, and is by no means bloatware. The entire app is 108KB.

Johnboy1951

Makes me wonder if those extracted drivers would work in Linux using ndiswrapper .......

carveone

Thanks all. Corkie - I'm not stuck as yet as I haven't purchased anything! I just dislike using the standard bloated garbage that comes with hardware if I can use the existing Windows systems. Especially as the machine I saw appeared to have stuff running as background tasks whether you were connected or not.
Back in the day, OceanFree and Eircom dialup internet came with an install CD when all you needed was the phone number. I've remembered that ever since

Watty - Yes, I guess it's just another modem with fancy AT commands to do the business...

jmccrohan - Those links look interesting, thanks. I was going to extract the drivers from the USB device itself - I figure the CD filesystem should contain the appropriate files (No to AutoPlay on my machine thank you).
The MDMA app looks nice and shows what can be done with a bit of effort. A guy writes an application that does what you want and is a 45KB zip. The "updated drivers" download from meteor.ie is 20MB. What are they doing in there? Storing bodies!?!? Junkware is the right word. And it's a question of trust. I've had enough of the garbage that comes with hardware - the last wifi pcmcia card I had installed all sorts of weird things that ran in the background writing things to the harddisk (sysinternals tools are great). Bye bye software, hello Zero Wireless Config.

I asked at a Meteor store about using the device. He said there's a PIN that goes with it and there's no online page to check your stats (I'd be using BillPay). He said the USB device stores the monthly usage stats itself which can't be right... Working through SMS text is weird - my O2 phone right here is *100# for my account balance. This is obviously a USSD interface; having to send a text would strike me as an unpopular thing to do!

Jonathan

carveone wrote: »

I asked at a Meteor store about using the device. He said there's a PIN that goes with it and there's no online page to check your stats (I'd be using BillPay). He said the USB device stores the monthly usage stats itself which can't be right... Working through SMS text is weird - my O2 phone right here is *100# for my account balance. This is obviously a USSD interface; having to send a text would strike me as an unpopular thing to do!

Using the meteor software, you can disable the pin prompt.

And the device itself doesn't store the usage, but the bloatware program does.

And yeah, the *#100# thing is what I'd be talking about.

carveone

jmccrohan wrote: »

Using the meteor software, you can disable the pin prompt.

And the device itself doesn't store the usage, but the bloatware program does.

And yeah, the *#100# thing is what I'd be talking about.

Grand so, thanks. One of those chicken and egg things then . I gather you think as much of this software as I do. Given the drivers you link to are 200KB unzipped and the meteor package is 20MB zipped, it boggles my mind as to what's going on in there. Probably a .NET runtime.
And I knew that guy in the store was talking rubbish. Cheers.

watty

Put the SIM in ANYTHING that will take a Meteor Sim (phone) and you can disable the PIN prompt and send the SMS.

The PIN prompt setting is stored in the SIM.