3G, Sony Ericsson and Debian

Recently, with a new phone purchase and current offers for 3G on maxis, I was trying to get Maxis 3G to work on my Linux box. I have been busy and my search for a solution was always interrupted, but the mydebian mailing list and the community have been supportive. Particularly to Donald and Irwan who have given me obvious clues, and Maxis website too helped (if only I have looked into it first).

So now I managed to browse the net using 3G, in fact, I'm using it right now, on debian and dialing to Maxis 3G. I decided to update this blog entry and give some pointers to whoever wants to use 3G on their Linux boxes.

I could have found a solution to it much sooner, but went with the hard way. I did a serial port scanning on windows to figure out what was going. I sure did learn a lot, but for the most things, the clues could have been easier to find if I went to Maxis website instead. They too gave some clues of how to connect on windows. With almost the same configuration based on Maxis instructions, it should work as well. Well too late to be crying over spilled milk, all that time wasted...hmmmm

Anyhow, for those of you who wants to use 3G Celcom with Debian, please take a look below for an excellent detail explanation. You can also get some hints if you are doing something a bit differently.

1. http://blog.irwan.name/?p=220
2. http://forum.kuchingosc.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=245

And for those of you using 3G Maxis with Debian, it's not so much different. All you have to do is:

• aptitude install wvdial.
• Run the wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf and
• edit the file /etc/wvdial.conf

Your file should look like this....

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 460800
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99***5#
Password = maxis
Username = wap

Yeah, the main changes was just the number to be dialled, username and password.

After that, running wvdial will get you connected. You can browse now..

I'm not sure about other telco, but if you are in doubt, and can't figure out was is happening, you can always
use serial port monitor to figure out what AT commands are being sent to your modem, on windows and try to do the same on Linux. As for the username and password, you will just have to ask your telco provider, or check out their website.

Happy Hacking guys......on 3G