Huawei E220 GSM modem with Fullrate/TDC

I recently got a new mobile internet by Fullrate using the TDC 3G network. Though this one is throttled at 1 Mbit download I had to do the traditional speed test. First with the bundled Huawei E220 GSM modem:

wget "http://ftp.ing.umu.se/linux/gentoo/releases/x86/2008.0/installcd/install-x86-minimal-2008.0.iso" -O /dev/null
--2009-03-03 18:20:19-- http://ftp.ing.umu.se/linux/gentoo/releases/x86/2008.0/installcd/install-x86-minimal-2008.0.iso
Resolving ftp.ing.umu.se... 130.239.117.84
Connecting to ftp.ing.umu.se|130.239.117.84|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 83396608 (80M) [application/x-iso9660-image]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[==================================================>] 83,396,608 115K/s in 11m 16s

2009-03-03 18:31:37 (121 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [83396608/83396608]

I then tried using the internal Sierra MC8775, with the antenna fully extended:

wget "http://ftp.ing.umu.se/linux/gentoo/releases/x86/2008.0/installcd/install-x86-minimal-2008.0.iso" -O /dev/null
--2009-03-03 21:59:26-- http://ftp.ing.umu.se/linux/gentoo/releases/x86/2008.0/installcd/install-x86-minimal-2008.0.iso
Resolving ftp.ing.umu.se... 130.239.117.84
Connecting to ftp.ing.umu.se|130.239.117.84|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 83396608 (80M) [application/x-iso9660-image]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[=================================================>] 83,396,608 105K/s in 13m 15s

2009-03-03 22:12:41 (103 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [83396608/83396608]

The Sierra modem is slightly slower than the Huawei E220 capped at 1 mbit. As long as you remember to fully extend the small ugly antenna on the X61s, the speed of the builtin Sierra modem is good enough for everyday browsing and email checking. I've heard that the sierra module might have gotten some fixes to increase transfer speed in kernel 2.6.28 or later but I haven't really had the time to verify this since speed is ok but not fantastic.

This time around I had to resolve a few quirks, with the help from the Fullrate Forum (which is not publicly available so I won't link) I got a wvdial script that made me realise my initial error. The username and password parameters in the pppd_ section in the Gentoo init scripts actually do have some meaning when connecting to Fullrate. So set them like this (remember to substitute <PIN> with your four digit PIN):

pppd_ppp1=(
"/dev/ttyUSB2"
"460800"
"crtscts"
"modem"
"noauth"
"usepeerdns"
"defaultroute"
"noipdefault"
"noccp"
"nobsdcomp"
"novj"
"user 'internet'"
"password '<PIN>'"
}

The chat_ part also needs a small twist with the dial string ATDT*99#:

chat_ppp1={
'ECHO' 'ON'
'ABORT' 'BUSY'
'ABORT' 'ERROR'
'ABORT' 'NO CARRIER'
'REPORT' 'CONNECT'
'TIMEOUT' '10'
'' 'ATZ'
'OK' 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet"'
'OK' 'ATE1V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2'
'OK' 'AT+IPR=115200'
'OK' 'ATE1'
'TIMEOUT' '60'
'' 'ATDT*99#'
'CONNECT'
}

Also for reference if you get several errors like the following it might be caused by having more than one modem attached to the same machine. Having enabled both the onboard Sierra MC8775 and the Huawei E220 at least caused this error.

sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x7c7fe374> <pcomp> <accomp>]

It can also have lots of other causes.