Wi-Fi availability

[Dave Hall]

Hi,

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 23:47 -0800, Swamp Rat wrote:
> I visited Telstra today to but a Wi-Fi broadband modem (the only
> service that will work in country towns) and was told they do not
> support Ubuntu or any other flavour of Linux. I don't want to spend
> $175 on a modem that doesn't work. I have an Asus Eee 901 and have
> just converted it to Ubuntu UNR. Everything works fine including Skype
> with webcam/audio. I desperately need comms. Does anyone know if a Wi-
> Fi will work with Ubuntu/UNR and how to get it going?

Do you mean a 3G WiFi router, looks like a normal router but takes a sim
card to connect to Telstra's Next G network?  Or are you talking about a
USB 3G modem?

If it is the first you should be fine.

If it is the later (usb 3g modem).  I would suggest you ask the store
for a 24hr trial.  I was lucky I know the regional sales manager for
Telstra Next G where I live, he gave me a 21Mbps modem and SIM for a
week to go nuts.  I ended up buying a cheaper modem from ebay and
signing up with Telstra Business.  BigPond requires that you use a
bigpond modem and you can't switch modems between pre and post paid.

Official vendor support and it working are 2 different things.  It might
also be worth pointing out to Telstra staff that Sierra (manufacturer of
most of their modems) offers the source code for their Linux drivers on
their website - including decent documentation too.

Cheers

Dave