Harsh J

This article shall detail the steps to setup, configure and begin using the Huawei E156 HSDPA (3G) USB Stick on Linux (fondly called by them BSNL employees as a ‘Data Card’).

On Windows, one generally uses the bundled ‘Huawei Mobile Partner’ software which does wonderful things like read messages, compute statistics, etc. There isn’t a similar software on Linux providing all of those under one roof, however.

First off, you need to create a BSNL 3G dialer profile, and you would require a software known as wvdial. Install it by either of these commands, in the Terminal application:

# On Ubuntu
sudo aptitude install wvdial

# On ArchLinux
sudo pacman -S wvdial

Now as root (or using sudo), open the file: /etc/wvdial.conf

# If you use GNOME, try:
sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

# If on KDE, try:
sudo kwrite /etc/wvdial.conf

Paste into your editor, the following lines:

[Dialer bsnlnet]
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = *99#
ISDN = 0
Baud = 460800
Username = " "
Password = " "
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = at+cgdcont=1,"ip","bsnlnet"
Stupid Mode = 1

Save the changes and close the editor. Now to get connected, you have to ask the wvdial command to start a particular connection. So simply do, on each startup:

wvdial bsnlnet

And lo, you’re online with blazing 3G speeds!

Note: You may be supposed to use a different APN like bsnlsouth sometimes (instead of bsnlnet or etc.), so change that in the highlighted line.

Since my first Modem+Router died (Was a Huawei SmartAX MT882), I got a newer one called UT300R2 by UTStarcomm. It looked sleek and all that but the landing page of the router seriously lacked options, giving only stuff like WAN config (For PPPoA, PPPoE, Bridged modes, etc.) and LAN config for DHCP, and almost nothing else.

I’m someone who requires port forwarding, virtual servers, etc. a lot for my daily work, and the lack of that option was a really bad thing; plus, being so attached to the internet, I didn’t want to go looking for a firmware upgrade solution and risk bricking it. Now, after about 2 months of getting this router, I realize I was stupid not to look beyond the landing page. It did have all the options, just not on its index page!

The feeling of being ultra stupid swept over me as I went to main.html via the history URLs (the old router’s landing page was main.html), and there it revealed all the options of the router, including some more from my former one! All I had to do was to go to http://192.168.1.1/main.html instead of simply http://192.168.1.1/, which I usually type. Gah, their simple cleverness worked against me!