Experiences with external UMTS dongle

Alexander Lehner lehner at edv-buero-lehner.de
Thu Jul 2 22:04:13 CEST 2009


Hi folks,

right now I managed to get an external UMTS dongle working on the FR.

Actually, the software part was not that hard, everything worked as 
expected (putting the USB into host mode, setting up pppd etc).

The real weird thing is, that the FR seems not to be able to deliver 
enough power, resulting in _very_ strange effects.

My UMTS USB dongle has a Huawei 160 chip inside, and the data sheet says 
it takes <= 2.5 Watts, which would be exactly the 500mA that the FR should 
provide.

My assumption is, that it takes far more than 2.5W, since the USB dongle 
gets pretty warm when I use it in a laptop.

So what I did was, to take an active USB hub, feed it with some batteries 
and connect the FR and the UMTS dongle to it.
Not pretty handy, but its a mobile solution ;)

Has anybody played around with external UMTS plugs already?
I could also provide my scripts and HowTos if there is interest.

Alex.





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