less than 1 minute read

I recently purchased an Alcatel Onetouch X200 3G USB modem, to be able to use internet on various locations where there is no wired or wifi available. Works fine under Windows/Mac OS X, bit more of a hassle under Linux.

Here are some hints on how to get it to work:

  • You need to install usb-modeswitch to switch the card from it’s builtin usb-storage mode to the USBModem mode. Configuration is done in /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf
  • Use /dev/ttyUSB2. The other two ports that your modem will give don’t really work well.
  • Also, use atleast kernel 2.6.31. Earlier ones might not work.
  • Disable PIN authentication on your SIMcard! This one thing was what kept it from working decently - I tried tons of things, and when I disabled the PIN, it worked nearly instantaneously.
    The command to do PIN auth is AT+CPIN=1111 (changing 1111 by your actual PIN), but when issuing this command the modem accepts it, but very often freaks out afterwards. Weird.
    You can find a nice list of GSM modem AT codes on gsm-modem.de.

Thats about it!

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