3G USB Modem (or Portable Wireless Hotspot) for the Pandora


FaeMinx

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I've done a quick search, but with my limited time didn't find the info I'm looking for.


I'll be visiting a big city next week and am looking to find a 3G Modem I can use both with my desktop comp. (WinXP and when I upgrade - Win7) and my Pandora when it arrives.


I'm not really a techy so am unclear on what specifications I need to check when shopping around.


I do know it must be High Speed USB 2.


And how will I know if the required software will run (or can be installed) on Pandora's version of Linux?


P.s. I've never used Linux - the Pandora will be my first introduction.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


*Edit: My computer is rather old and doesn't have Wifi - so would have to get a Wifi card to make use of the Portable Wireless Hotspot..? The reason I would rather have a simple USB modem if I can confirm it will definitely work with the Pandora.
 
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I've done a quick search, but with my limited time didn't find the info I'm looking for.


I'll be visiting a big city next week and am looking to find a 3G Modem I can use both with my desktop comp. (WinXP and when I upgrade - Win7) and my Pandora when it arrives.


I'm not really a techy so am unclear on what specifications I need to check when shopping around.


I do know it must be High Speed USB 2.


And how will I know if the required software will run (or can be installed) on Pandora's version of Linux?


P.s. I've never used Linux - the Pandora will be my first introduction.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
have you considered a MiFi (portable wireless hotspot) would need less config and should just work with anything with Wifi
 
have you considered a MiFi (portable wireless hotspot) would need less config and should just work with anything with Wifi

Can you tell me more? I've never used Wifi and I've used Bluetooth only once before on a cell phone.


What exactly is a portable wireless hotspot? Does it function as a modem as well?
 
Can you tell me more? I've never used Wifi and I've used Bluetooth only once before on a cell phone.


What exactly is a portable wireless hotspot? Does it function as a modem as well?
Yup baically its a little device which connects to the internet(3g modem) and broadcasts a wifi signal so if your in range ( and know passcode) you can have multiple devices connected to it, e.g pandora, phone, laptop


Its sort of like a wireless 3g dongle, bit more expensive
 
Yup baically its a little device which connects to the internet(3g modem) and broadcasts a wifi signal so if your in range ( and know passcode) you can have multiple devices connected to it, e.g pandora, phone, laptop


Its sort of like a wireless 3g dongle, bit more expensive


So this thing is called a 'Mifi'? - and that's all I need to know? Get me one of those and I'm good to go?


How is it powered?
 
So this thing is called a 'Mifi'? - and that's all I need to know? Get me one of those and I'm good to go?


How is it powered?
Its battery powered,


Mifi is a brand ( i think)


it will depend where you are in the world to use it I guess CDMA / GSM etc but as with a 3g modem you will obviously need a sim card with credit/contract


Ive never used one though this is all just what ive read and such, im sure someone else will pop in with some more information bout modems/mifi
 
Most smartphones serve as Portable Wireless Hotspot now-a-days. So if you have that you might be better off changing your pay-plan with your phone service provider.


If you don't and want to save money mostly anything from Huawei or ZTE (USB Modem) should work fine on the Pandora, as the drivers for those are opensourced and thus freely available.
 
I'm in Ireland and am using an O2 Hotspot (it's a Huawei but I've no idea of the actual model number). Connected to it with my Pandora with no problems, apart from some issues with the Wifi driver itself (which I'm sure will get ironed out in due course!)
 
I have no need for a mobile telephone, so I use a "MiFi" device with my Pandora. It struck me as much more convenient than trying to figure out which USB 3G device would be supported by all of the hardware that I happen to use.


As meandu229 noted, "MiFi" is a specific brand, but I know that some cellular providers, such as my own, have started using it as a catch-all term for these things (this is why I tend to put it in quotes) - my own is actually a Huawei device.


It's basically a battery-powered, pocket-sized 3G modem/router (it can be recharged via USB, or via a USB-to-AC adapter). Out of the box this particular model is set up with WPA2 (AES) encryption, but you can tweak this (and other settings) to your liking via a browser-based interface which is pretty much the same as any other router. However, it's worth noting that for some reason I couldn't use the Pandora to change the settings - I had to connect it to a laptop for this (specifically my Macintosh, but I'm pretty sure that I could have done the same on my Xubuntu machine). I don't know why that is, as I was using the very same browser and version that I use on my main computers.


Pandora_MiFi.png



Here's a picture, alongside my Pandora, to show the size of it.


Other points of note are that the device can receive and send SMS messages via the browser interface, and that it can support up to five devices at once. It supports both 3G and HSDPA, depending on the coverage in the areas that you happen to be using it in.


Whilst I haven't used up a single charge in one go, apparently it lasts for about six hours or so whilst in use.


I think that's all of the information that I can provide. If you don't have need for a mobile telephone, I would highly recommend this solution over a USB device, personally, purely because it's more flexible.
 
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I went with the same device as Prometheus and it is very useful.


On mine I get dropped Pandora connection on some attemtps to download anything with it and it requires its battery pulling to reset it when that happens, which is kinda annoying. Its purely my Pandora related though as other devices, laptop, Wii, iTouch etc can use it no problem at all.
 
^ That is unusual. I don't get that with mine. What encryption setup is yours using?


[/slightly off-topic]
 
Just got off work =)


Do you have a web link for that device?


I don't suppose there's any chance it could be connected via usb to a computer that has no Wifi and then used as a modem?
 
Yes, it's possible - if you plug it in over USB you can use it like a normal USB-dongle. I don't think you can use the wifi mode at the same time, but you could certainly switch between the two. That's with the Huawei model that Three (UK) sells as their MiFi. Other networks may provide different hardware, which might not be able to do that.


A lot of mobile networks now have similar things - the T-Mobile and Vodafone networks here in the UK have similar offerings, a lot of the US networks also do them. The broadest generic description would be "mobile broadband with a portable wifi hotspot".


It looks like MTN sell the Huawei mobile hotspot, skip to page 3 of the results on this link (sorry, no direct link - their site is terrible!), it's the E5830 there. (Which is the same model number as my white-and-silver one from Three UK). There might be better deals from other SA networks, that was just the easiest one I could find.
 
Yes, it's possible - if you plug it in over USB you can use it like a normal USB-dongle. I don't think you can use the wifi mode at the same time, but you could certainly switch between the two. That's with the Huawei model that Three (UK) sells as their MiFi. Other networks may provide different hardware, which might not be able to do that.


A lot of mobile networks now have similar things - the T-Mobile and Vodafone networks here in the UK have similar offerings, a lot of the US networks also do them. The broadest generic description would be "mobile broadband with a portable wifi hotspot".


It looks like MTN sell the Huawei mobile hotspot, skip to page 3 of the results on this link (sorry, no direct link - their site is terrible!), it's the E5830 there. (Which is the same model number as my white-and-silver one from Three UK). There might be better deals from other SA networks, that was just the easiest one I could find.

This is great! Thank you Buxton! And thank you Prometheus!


I've tried searching for other options, but my connection keeps timing out (one of the reasons I'm investigating this in the first place).


Now that I'm better informed, I have no doubt I'll find something once I get to Cape Town. Worst case I'll just sign up with MTN and get the Huawei Mobile Hotspot that Buxton pointed out. :D
 
Thanks Prometheus, you must have missed my prior mention of this but your pointers here and in the recent wifi thread caused me to mess with the TPIK/AES settings and now the MiFi unit both no longer disconnects on downloads and flies along at upto 400KB/s, with a steady 200+ compared to sub 60 priorly.


I owe you a Megaman cross-stitch design you havent got (could be tricky ;) ) or a drink at the least :)


Tried the AES for my home router without as much luck as others so I'm still sub 100KB/s there but it gives some incentive to re-mess with settings some more.
 
Thanks Prometheus, you must have missed my prior mention of this but your pointers here and in the recent wifi thread caused me to mess with the TPIK/AES settings and now the MiFi unit both no longer disconnects on downloads and flies along at upto 400KB/s, with a steady 200+ compared to sub 60 priorly.
I did indeed miss your prior mention of it. :p Congrats!

I owe you a Megaman cross-stitch design you havent got (could be tricky ;) ) or a drink at the least :)
Haha, nah. Think nothing of it. :)

Tried the AES for my home router without as much luck as others so I'm still sub 100KB/s there but it gives some incentive to re-mess with settings some more.
Good luck with it. With any luck, given time, more information will emerge as to why this sort of thing happens.
 
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Greetings. How the heck do I make my Huawei E160E and Pandora make understand each other, so I would get to the wonderful world of internet with it? I am at a loss.
 
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Greetings Tosikko, according to this http://pandorawiki.org/USB_compatibility_list you should be in luck, as someone, somewhere has gotten that model to work. Sadly there's no comments or link to discussion.


This thread maybe more use http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54318-guide-mobile-broadband-usb-stick-usage/ but it relates to a Huawei E1820 HSPS+stick. Worth a look perhaps? Hope you get it sorted :)

Thanks MarioPandio, I wasn't even aware of that second topic! It was quite useful but still did not manage to get my Huawei to work. I installed modemmanager and sudo lsusb says that the Huawei is plugged in. It went well until the modeswitch and modprobe. Those commands doesn't seem to do anything for me. Thus, the "Enable Mobile Broadband" option never appears in Network Manager. Dmesg seems to indicate that it first gets connected and then disconnected from "ttyUSB*". This is what modeswitch does for me:


panda:~$ sudo /lib/udev/modem-modeswitch -v 0x12d1 -p 0x1003 -t option-zerocd -d


D: Found mass storage device:


D: Endpoints: 3


D: Class: 0xFF


D: SubClass: 0xFF


D: Protocol: 0xFF


E: No device found
 
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