Perspectives

Needed a backup internet connection for work. Having heard great things about their network/pricing and bad things about their customer support, I decided to go with BSNL.

• To begin with, I didnt know where to go find a BSNL SIM card.

1. Turns out, BSNL offices are in the many BDA Complexes in Bangalore.

• Being a backup connection, it makes sense to take a Prepaid connection. But:

1. 1. BSNL Prepaid cards are hard to find.
   2. There are no yearly or forever validity packs available on 3G data plans.

A quick study revealed that the only difference between prepaid & postpaid plans is when they take the tax & not pricing. (700 Rs plan valid for 60 days in prepaid may be better than Postpaid, but due to lack of availability, I went with Postpaid). Took a monthly 400 and odd plan.

• Buy a data card or just connect a mobile phone as modem?

1. 1. Many cheap mobile phones may not have 3G. For ex, I had a spare Nokia 2690 which only supported EDGE.
   2. The max speeds on these mobiles phones may lesser than a dedicated stick. So, I decided to buy a dedicated stick.

I tried connecting an old Nokia N73 as modem but I felt that the (download) speed was slow. Three variables (I hear) when it comes to data cards are: Max speeds, HSDPA & tri band. HSDPA is an extension on top of 3G network which enables faster download speeds. Point being, even if your mobile phone operates on 3G, you may get lesser speeds than data stick.

• BSNL sells Terracom data cards (7.2 MBPS) for 2500 Rs which is locked

1. That means you can use it only with BSNL SIM. There maybe ways to unlock it (Google is your friend), but neither did I want to worry about it nor did I want to get locked with BSNL (considering I did’nt know what actual speeds I will get now or in the future).
2. Decided to go with a generic USB stick that will work across networks. BSNL Sells Huawei E173 in their offices for Rs. 4700 or so. These USB sticks are not easily available in computer stores but they are in Ebay.
3. Because I didnt want to increase failure points, decided not to order from Ebay despite the fact that the same model was available at around 2900 Rs or so. (How can there be such a big price difference unless they are eating into warranty?).
4. Now a proud Owner of Huawei E173, HSDPA enabled, tri band & speeds upto 7.2 Mbps. Great.

• Huawei card does not do anything. There is nothing in the Network Managar applet.
  

1. The Huawei E173 stick also has a slot for shoving in a Mini SD card & so, by default, the stick gets recognized as a USB mass storage on Ubuntu 10. So, connect the stick and do:

$ lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 12d1:140c Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 058f:6366 Alcor Micro Corp. Multi Flash Reader
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

12d1:140c is the ID of your device. Now do:

$ sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

$ sudo usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1\:14oC

$ sudo modprobe usbserial

Now you should see the connection in your “Network Manager” applet. Configure it. The only thing you need is the “APN”, which is “bsnlnet”.

I restarted & didnt find the connection in network manager. So, created a shell script called “3G” with those two commands. Ran it & we are up again. And here is what I got (which is significantly faster than what I got when I did the test on Windows)

Related posts:

1. Nokia Maps on my N73
2. The changing world ( of internet advertising)