2010-01-18

Sony-Ericsson MD400G usb modem - Ubuntu - Rogers

I did a small project to get a Sony-Ericsson MD400G USB Broadband Data Modem running on Ubuntu to access Rogers.

This post gives the magic (but somewhat kludgy!) recipe.





The big challenge was to find a way to give the modem the SIM PIN to unlock it.

To actually get the USB stick to work, here is what I did:


  • Install the usb-modeswitch package.
  • Use the following command to flip-flop the device to modem mode:
    sudo usb_modeswitch -v 0x0fce -p 0xd103 -O 1

  • Install wvdial to interface with the modem and set up ppp.

The modem's PIN caused problems with the Gnome Network-Manager that Ubuntu uses by default.

Here is the wvdial.conf file for the modem for access to Rogers:

wvdial.conf

To fire it up, use something like:
sudo wvdial rogers-pin
  • Rogers-nopin stanza is used if the modem has already accepted its PIN.
  • Rogers-PIN enters the PIN to the modem but is otherwise the same.
  • "Auto DNS" means that wvdial will take the DNS from the ISP and update resolv.conf.
  • Obviously you replace "nnnnn" by whatever the modem's PIN actually is.
Be careful with PINs on USB modems. Like most cell phones, 5 strikes and you are really out.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

possibly a dumb question but how do I find out the pin for my device??

Brew said...

rogers-nopin solution worked great for me since I didn't configure any pins yet on my sim card.

I can finally browse wherever I want, thanks!

Aus rasul said...

sounds promissing, I'll give it a try now.

I've been struggling with that modem since I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04.

Unknown said...

sudo usb_modeswitch -v 0x0fce -p 0xd103 -O 1
i get segmentation error
do you know what an error?

Unknown said...

segmentation error resolved but there are another problem.


--> Sending: AT+CPIN=1234
AT+CPIN=1234
ERROR
--> Bad init string.

can you help me?