Reliance Netconnect Broadand Data Card On Linux - Observations

[Prabhat_Ranjan 0]

I have tested two Reliance Broadband card on offer right now for connectivity on Linux. I have tested this on Fedora 11 and it uses Linux 2.6.29 Kernel.

1. Huawei 1261 card - Works right away - once you insert it, it gets recognized as a USB device connected to one of the ports as a serial device. You can use normal RConnect package for Linux with slight modification for device name to make it work. On older version of Linux kernel, this may get recognized as a storage device and one may have to use usb_modeswitch to put it into modem mode.

2. LG LXU 800 - For this card, I had to insert usbserial module with vendor and device number as follows to get it to work.

login as root and run

#modprobe -r usbserial

#modprobe usbserial vendor=0xeab product=0x9357

Now insert the device and look at the /var/log/messages file or use "dmesg" command to see, if it gets attached to a serial device.

[ami1 237]

I have found that EC1260 & ZTE 2726 do not get recognized as usb modems even in latest kernels sometimes and one needs to use usb_modeswitch to switch them from usb-storage to usbserial. usb_modeswtich needs a lot of arcane configuration to work.

So here are the details on how to get Huawei EC1260 & ZTE 2726 to run using usb_modeswtich.

Both of these appear as a usb cdrom as they are flip flop mode devices with a small flash storage on them where the drivers are stored (for windows) so they need to be switched to usbserial mode from usb-storage mode.

1. Download and install usb_modeswitch from here Alternatively just search in your distros add/remove applications package or synaptic or apt-get etc. Worst case you can just download the attached files and copy usb_modeswitch to /usr/sbin and usb_modeswitch.conf to /etc The binary should work on most distros as it doesn't have much dependency.

2. Type the following commands in a new file and save it in /usr/bin

Alternatively just download the huawei-ec1260 or zte2726 files and copy them to /usr/bin

/usr/bin/huawei-EC1260

#Huawei EC1260

rmmod option

modprobe -r usb-storage usbserial

rmmod usbserial 2>/dev/null

modprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x140b

#LINE BELOW IS ONE SINGLE LINE

usb_modeswitch -v 0x12d1 -p 0x140b -H 1 -m 0x07 -M 555342431234567824000000800008FF05B112AEE102000000000000000000

/usr/bin/zte2726

#ZTE 2726

modprobe -r usb-storage usbserial

#rmmod usbserial 2>/dev/null

/sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0x0fff1

#LINE BELOW IS ONE SINGLE LINE

/usr/sbin/usb_modeswitch -v 0x19d2 -p 0xfff1 -M 5553424312345678c00000008000069f030000000000000000000000000000

You can also add the following sections to /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf at the end

########################################################

# ZTE AC2726 (EVDO)

# Contributor: rimweb.in

DefaultVendor= 0x19d2

DefaultProduct= 0xfff5

TargetVendor= 0x19d2

TargetProduct= 0xfff1

;DetachStorageOnly=1

MessageEndpoint=0x0a

MessageContent="5553424312345678c00000008000069f010000000000000000000000000000"

;ResponseEndpoint=0x84

;NeedResponse=1

########################################################

# Huawei AC 1260 (EVDO)

# Contributor: rimweb.in

DefaultVendor= 0x12d1

DefaultProduct= 0x140b

TargetVendor= 0x12d1

TargetProduct= 0x140b

# only for reference

# MessageEndpoint=0x07

MessageContent="555342431234567824000000800008FF05B112AEE102000000000000000000"

########################################################

Alternatively use the attached usb_modewitch.conf and copy it to /etc/

3. Now before you run your wvdial or kppp or other dialing app you need to run huawei-ec1260 or zte2726 after which the usb device /dev/ttyUSB0 will appear. Use this device name in your dialing application.

I am not given the dialing application details as those are already known & covered everywhere and essentially you just have to give this device name and your phone no as login/password for reliance or 'internet' as login/password for tata.

All files mentioned above are here:linux broadband zte2726 huawei-ec1260.zip

Hope that helps.

Edited November 9, 2009 by amione