eircom mobile broadband on linux mint

burtyburr

This has prob been asked before but i finding it imposible to get answers.
Just got aan eircom 7.2mb mobile dongle.Huawei e180
It works grand on the one xp machine in the house.
The problem is with when i plug it into my lappy running Linux Mint. I get options for meteor, 3 ,02 and vodafone but no eircom. I thought setting it up on meteor would work but no joy.
Basicly i need to set up an eircom a/c but i need to know the apn used by eircom mobile broadbamd. as well as the default username and password.
Anyone out there in the same boat?

burtyburr

ok....so after a bit of thought on the subject here is what i did.
After linux mint detected the dongle i choose the meteor option as the way to go.
I did this cause the well groomed dude in the eircom/3g shop said he hadnt a fXXXen clue about linux(his words not mine) but that he thought eircom broadband shared the network with meteor.
next i went to menu-->controll center-->network connections-->mobile broadband
I selected Meteor and clicked Edit
I changed the connection name to eircom. This is only to keep a clean record of stuff.
then i cleared user and password.
then i changed the apn from
isp.mymeteor.ie
to
broadband.mymeteor.ie
then clicked apply.
I got a message saying connection had been established but still could not connect via firefox.
So I simply rebooted and it all worked great.
So far so good.
If anyone has reason to think this is a bad idea please post.
I just slightly paranoid about being billed as an Meteor customer while i am soppoused to be an eircon one.
cheers.

burtyburr

I have found that even after setting the dongle up yu cant just unplug and replug it. U have to boot with the dongle attached. apart from that. cant really fault it. you get nowhere near the adverdised speed but hey ...welcome to the real world. it has touched on the 1mbs on occasion which is ok for me.
i will be letting the missus use this for her facebook and the child for her games but i thinlk i will be sticking with borrowing the neighbiours fixed line broadband for anything serious.

I don't know anything about Linux either but I suspect that your app was using the wrong APN anyway, its database probably predates the introduction of Meteor's 3G network.

broadband.mymeteor.ie is correct for even a real Meteor 3G customer. isp.mymeteor.ie isn't intended for use with with their Huawei modems.

Amalgam

The current default of Linux Mint 7 uses faulty Meteor Dongle settings.

If you try to connect, password is offered to Meteor as 'my'. Which stalls the connect process. The old APN is also offered.

burtyburr

No...I defo have a problem here.
When i use the eircom application to see my usage it tells me i have only used a few hundred mb but when i view it on myeircom.ie it shows the true amont at a few gig.
So obviously while you can use the meteor apn on an eircom dongle if you want to keep your usage on track there must be a seperate apn for eircom mobile.
When i venture into tools and settings on the eircom app on my vista machine and go to profile management i see a box for apn settings.
Unfortunatly the box is greyed so i cant enter into it to view the full apn addresse. All I can see is

broadband.eircomm

yeah thats eircomm with 2 mm's.
So obviously eircom uses its own apn as distinct from meteor on their mobile broadband.
Now the 64grand question.
Does anyone know the apn for eircom mobile broadband?

Amalgam

No disrespect, but you've changed the goalposts somewhat.. You started out asking about an APN under Linux, using an Eircom broadband dongle.. but now it is Vista and not being able to edit APN settings.

Is the dongle a 'Meteor' dongle, yes or no? People will be able to help you if you put out a clear set of details.

It is a Huawei E180, so, from the hardware point of view, little will change from other E180 users. It is just a case of the APN.

I am a Huawei E180 user too, just to add.

Amalgam

Does this help? A list of Irish APN's.

http://3g-router.ie/2009/02/whats-my-apn/

What’s my Access Point Name (APN)?

That is probably the question that causes most head-scratching for Irish Dovado users, during the initial wizard configuration of the Dovado USB Mobile Broadband Router (UMR).

Your Access Point Name (APN) identifies the access point on your provider’s 3G network your modem will use to connect to the internet. There may be some information provided with your USB modem by the mobile phone company specifying the APN you should use. You can also check the default settings on the software used to configure the USB modem on your computer.

The table below shows the APNs known to be used by the Irish operators and shows if the IP address provided by the APN is public or private.

Operator - APN - IP address type

3 - 3internet - Public

3 - 3ireland.ie - Private

Eircom (1) - broadband.eircombb.ie - Public (tbc)

Meteor (2) - broadband.mymeteor.ie - Public (tbc)

O2 - open.internet - Public

O2 - internet - Private

Vodafone - hs.vodafone.ie - Public

Vodafone - internet - Private

---

Note: private IP addresses provide a limited form of internet connection, intended for sharing among very large numbers of 3G phone users, whereas public IP addresses offer the full range of internet functionality, e.g. online gaming, voice over IP (VOIP), port forwarding, similar to what is provided on most DSL and Wireless broadband solutions.

(1) As of mid-June 2009, Eircom’s mobile broadband packages services are only available in Dublin County, Cork City, Dundalk, Drogheda, Navan, Naas, Waterford, Bray and Newbridge.

(2) Meteor’s "Broadband To Go" service shares the same 3G network as Eircom and is therefore available in the same locations. Thanks to Jason Roe for the info on Meteor’s APN.

Posted in FAQ.

burtyburr

Sorry Amalgam,
Just to clarify.
It is an Eircom Dongle. 4 days old. Huwai 180.
It works fine on xp and vista.
I am trying to get it to run on Linux Mint 7 with the proper apn.
I referenced the vista as i tried to use the eircom app on vista to see if it could tell me the correct apn to use on linux.
I cannot read the full apn on vista only the part that reads

broadband.eircomm

As a result , none of the apn's quouted above seem to match.
cheers.

With the Meteor dongle the APN is listed in the file "C:\Program Files\Broadband to go\plugins\NetConnectPlugin\SysProfile.prof" Maybe if you browse to the equivalent location in the eircom software you might find it there. Try searching your PC for SysProfile.prof and open it in Notepad.

burtyburr

Cheers for the heads up Karsini,

I had to remember to use word wrap but it was in there all right.
The apn for the eircom mobile dongle is

broadband.eircommbb.ie

leaving the user name and password blank the first time i switched was also a good idea.

Thank you Boards.ie!!!

on another issue. When i had it set with the meteor apn i was using transmission bittorrent to download a fle. It worked for one day but then just stopped talking to peers.
Now that i am using the eircom apn it back working again. Interesting.
Thanks again all.

Amalgam

Heh, word wrap saves the day!

I suggest using Peerguardian 2 for torrents and also maybe encrypting your torrent traffic and accepting data only from encrypted clients. Depends on the software you're using for torrents.

burtyburr

just for reference and for those following this i thought i would update you on the situation so far.
I have deployed this dongle across numerous linux platforms including fedora 11,slackware 13?(my fav), mint 7 and suse.
Once the apn is established it all plain sailing.However..........
I will say that my connection speed has degraded once i pass the 2 week return to base warenty period.
The misus uses the dongle a lot to stay current on facebook.She has commented(ie wrecked my head) a lot of late as regards the slow speed of this connection. I will be speed testing this later this week but acording to her, it does not matter when you connect,she has been known to wake ar 2 am to do the brain training ap on facebook, the speed is allways crap.
From my own experience of downloading linux iso's and just web browsing there is a defo fall off after 2 weeks of use.I live smack bang in the middle of wexford town so it cant be a connective issue.
In retrospect it killing me that i am paying 20e a month on this for the crappy connection speed but it beats the hell out of paying 20e a month plus line rental for the same thing.
I guess in summary that what i am saying is you get what you pay for. the connection works pretty much anywhere but i have a paranoia that the speed is dumbed down once you pass the return to base warenty. In the mean time i will continue to exploit the eircom wifi default wep bug when downloading large files.

Amalgam

Be happy with what you have, I am going 1 month 3, 1 month Eircom.. and the 3 month is very very frustrating.. the problem is I burn through the 5GB Eircom bandwidth very easily, in about 3 weeks.

Eircom, I have the ability to *upload* at close to 1MB. Pretty amazing, I'm in the suburbs of Dublin, whereas with 3, barely scratch 5kb up.

Facebook doesn't work on 3, well.. it doesn't work well, whereas on Eircom, at least it functions, 'normally'.

You might want to edit your post, intruding on a network that 'isn't yours' for any reason, at a technical level, is a case of forced access.. and illegal.

burtyburr

Duly noted Amalgam,
But i actually meant it in all honesty. I set up my neighbour on wpa2 for free on condition I could download linux iso's when the need arose.
But in fairness, the eircom wep vulnerabilty issue has been around since 2007 and is only now been reported in the general press with a statistic of 54 per cent risk rate.
Moral's aside ,have you seen the torrent download rate for eircom wifi hack lately?
Anyway I dont want to detract from the thread.
Of late I note I have to disconnect the eircom link and then reconnect in order for it to work.