[ubuntu-za] Creating a stir

[Morgan Collett]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 14:52, Gustav H Meyer<ghmeyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi William,
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 2:04 PM, William Walter Kinghorn
> <williamk at dut.ac.za> wrote:
>>
>> For the HUWAI E220 USB modem, try this, first put modem in usb slot, wait
>> a min or so
>
> The problem is not getting connected. In fact we got connected within
> seconds after connecting the modem at my house. The problem is the
> connectivity at my friends house which is worse than bad. The modem jumps
> back and forth between GPRS, 3G and HSDPA (light going between green, light
> blue and darker blue) making it totally and utterly unworkable. #FAIL
>
> On Kubuntu (and sadly even Windows which leaves the perception with the user
> that Linux is not ready for the desktop) there is a dropdown option to set
> the Network Type to either Any, GPRS, GSM, Prefer GPRS or Prefer GSM.
> Unfortunately this option does not exist on the GNOME version of Ubuntu
> 9.04. With the modem set at GPRS at least the signal is stable and workable
> even if damn slow.
>
> Fortunately this friend of mine found a workaround. Setting the modem to
> GPRS Only while on Windows seems to set the sim card and when you then use
> it on Ubuntu it stays on GPRS. Not ideal at all but it seems to work.

karmic should ship with ModemManager alongside NetworkManager which
will improve the use of 3G devices. Hopefully it will address this
issue too.

Regards
Morgan