OPTION 3G+ Orange

[Volker]

On 07/24/07 13:16, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> El día Thursday, July 05, 2007 a las 03:57:10PM +0200, Volker escribió:
> 
>> Matthias,
>>
>> your card looks like an old one. ubsa is absolutely ok for your card.
>> The driver for download at the URL above is really just for newer
>> (PCMCIA/cardbus) cards using a different interface (so not of any use
>> for your card).
>>
>> These newer cards are named "Option 3G+" or "Option 3GMax" (HSDPA
>> capable). The older quad etc. cards are really fine with ubsa (just
>> the WLAN part of these cards is of no use as there's no support for
>> these chips and no driver will attach).
>>
>> All Option cards are best identified by the two starting letter of
>> their serial number. You'll find a list of all models at pharscape.org
>>
>> Volker
> 
> Volker,
> 
> Do you (or someone from the mobile list) know of any kind of UMTS
> adapter which can be used in a normal PC via RS232 cable with
> PPP in FreeBSD? all what I see are PCMCIA cards.
> 
> Some days I got to know about a USB connected GPRS device:
> http://www.golem.de/0707/53401.html
> but I don't know if the USB-serial driver sees this at the end as a serial
> device and if it can be controlled with AT cmd's (maybe I will order
> some device to run a test);
> that's why I think the same could exist for UMTS...
> 
> Thx
> 
> 	matthias

Matthias,

well... I'm not aware of such hardware currently supported by FreeBSD.

There are some USB devices on the market (Huawei is one of them, the
units sold by T-Mobile seem to come from a german manufacturer) but
these are tricky as they provide not only a USB modem interface and
the wrong driver may attach to the unit.

A specially crafted driver for these devices is required.
Unfortunately I don't have such a device and they're too expensive
to buy one just for testing. Also my driver building knowledge is
somewhat limited and it would take me days to code something.

Also there are some USB-to-PCMCIA adapters on the market (AFAIR
called USB-111 and the like) but these are working only with a
limited set of PCMCIA cards (never checked that as I don't have such a
unit).

I remember having seen a manufacturer (don't remember the
name) on the market who produces boxes with USB and serial (V.24)
interfaces. That may be worth a web search if such a device is needed.

Your best option might be to use a regular (UMTS capable) phone and
connect it by USB (or V.24) to your box. For such devices, there
may already exist a driver which recognizes the phone. It may need
to get quirks set.

If you can't find a device and you want to use that in a desktop
system, you may also use a PCMCIA-to-PCI adapter and a
PCMCIA/cardbus card (you may also need to connect an external
antenna). I've got one in my router and it worked fine for a long time.

Back to the Option 3G+ USB box, a while back I checked the USB
drivers. While the driver (ubsa and umass for example) attaches to
the USB device, it most likely returns UMATCH_VENDOR_PRODUCT if the
driver supports the device. This will stop other drivers from probing
the device and so the first driver wins the device. For devices with
multiple interfaces, this logic needs to be changed. Unfortunately my
driver writing knowledge is limited but a good driver for such devices
shouldn't be too difficult to write. Returning
UMATCH_VENDOR_CONF_IFACE or UMATCH_IFACECLASS should allow other
drivers to attach to the device, too.

HTH

Volker