Using USB datacard in Ubuntu

If you are in India and want to use Internet on move you need an USB modem. You can insert the sim of your choice,  activate the "data plan" for that operator and start using the Internet.

Unfortunately, all the network provider in India provide driver for these modems only for Windows operating system. If you are an Linux user, there is absolutely no support for these modems.

Below is the detail procedure of how I used my USB Modem ( MTNL 3G JADOO) with Ubuntu 12.04LTS


Step -1:

I used Sakis3G script to use this modem. You can download it from here.

http://www.sakis3g.org/

The version I downloaded was "All architects - Binary free version  (144K)". Unzip and save the "Sakis3g" on Desktop.


Step - 2:

Open terminal and exceute the following command

Step - 3:

Following window will open after executing these commands

Select "Connect with 3G" option from the list and hit OK.

Step - 4:


Select "USB Device" and hit OK

Step - 5:

Select "HSPA Data Card" and hit OK. If you have different data card that will be listed here.

Step - 6:

Select the Kernel module. Depending upon your datacard you will have different options. You need to try all of them. For me "option kernel module" worked perfectly fine

Step - 7:

Select the APN. Depending upon your network provider APN will change. You can find the APN by looking into the settings of these network provider in the corresponding windows software. In my case, I used the datacard in Windows machine. The software for datacard in windows machine had an option called profile. In there, APN was listed. 

For Vodafone and Reliance, it was simply "www" for BSNL it was "bsnlnet". You can also try your luck by calling customer care. As I was using Reliance 3G SIM, I simply selected "Reported by your modem (www).

Step - 8:

Most of the network provider don't have any username and password. But script requires it, So simply put any text for username and password.

    

Step - 9:

If the modem is able to connect you should see the message box similar to below. In my case for Reliance the message was "connected to unknown operator and for Vodafone SIM, it detected the network and message was "connected to vodafone"

Step - 10:

Once you hit OK, following window will appear and you should be able to use Internet. When you want to disconnect simply select Disconnect and hit OK.

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Note - I have successfully used this script for Reliance 3G GSM and Vodafone. I could not use it for BSNL SIM. Also note that this script is only useful for GSM network provider. I tried to use it with CDMA datacard with no success.