Hardware geekeries

One of our telco here in France currently proposes a pack to access internet everywhere, using 3G+ technology. This pack includes a sub-notebook format computer, an Asus EeePC 4G, and a 3G+ huawei-E172 USB key. Why is this pack more interesting imo than other ones, especially for linux geeks ?

In mobile world, unlimited offers are often subject to small footnotes(*) where the reader learns that the word unlimited in fact means limited to a given amount of traffic, or to a to restrictive time range, where the offer is available, or whatever other restriction you may imagine. In case of restriction override, the bill often becomes prohibitive, and easily uncontrolled.

This pack is different because it proposes an 1GB monthly traffic quota, and once the limit is reached, the bandwidth is limited to 128Kbits, but the customer won't have to pay extra cost. So this is clearly an offer, where the customer knows in advance the cost of his subscribtion, whatever his traffic profile may be. This is a good point.

Currently in France, the 3G+ coverage is mainly limited to big cities and touristic area for all telco operators. Providing an online up-to-date coverage map is mandatory in France, so the customer can compare the network quality before subscribing. Here is the coverage map for Orange, and for SFR for example. It appears that 3G+ coverage is noticeably better for Orange than for SFR, at least considering the surface of territory covered.

This pack is interesting, because each item can be used separately, and moreover each item works fine with free software.

Asus EeePC

This laptop has subnotebook format, with a screen resolution of 800x480, powered by an Intel graphic chipset, so perfectly supported by the free linux driver. The processor is an Intel Celeron, with 512MB RAM, and a 4GB SSD drive. Except the processor fan, there's no moving parts in the box.

The EeePC is shipped with a Xandros Linux distro, but it can also run most other linux distro without trouble. I installed Eeedora, a Fedora 8 live cd/usbstick tailored to the machine, with a light desktop (xfce), a reduced package set, and some customizations related to ACPI hotkeys, and to the wifi driver. Starting from this Fedora 8, I upgraded to Rawhide, rebuilt the madwifi driver for the newer kernel, the asus acpi kernel module for the hot keys, and installed gnome as the default desktop.

And now, I have a nice little box fully supported with Fedora 9, even if disk space is a bit low after this update, with 1.5GB free space remaining on the 4GB disk.

3G+ USB HSPA modem

The usb key contains a huawei-E172 modem, which is well supported with a recent Fedora kernel (>= 2.6.24). The connection is established with usual ppp protocol. This page provides the basic ppp setup (ignore the part about udev rules, that's not needed with Fedora). The particularity of the modem is that two devices are created when inserting the key. /dev/ttyUSB0 is the regular modem, and /dev/ttyUSB1 is the control channel. The later one is typically needed to send the pin value value to the card, before connecting with the first one. When pin value has been successfully accepted by the modem, the light color of the key will change from green to blue.

The next step will be proper integration of the ppp connection stuff into the NetworkManager. Dan is working hard on it for version 0.7.0, but support is not yet available in rawhide at the time of this writing (regular ppp is possible, but extra steps specific to a gsm modem, like pin and APN settings are not yet implemented).

An alternate free software application allows to manage the key. The project is developped by Vodafone and provides a nice gui that handle connection settings, signal quality display, traffic accounting and some other goodies.

Conclusion

I said that this pack is interesting because each element can be used separately, without loosing functionnalities. The 3G+ USB key can work on any linux box, and the EeePC can be used independantly of the key (100Mbits ethernet and 802.11 wifi), running your favorite linux distro.

Finally I can give up using my old pcmcia modem card, on analog phone lines, and connect everywhere wirelessly, at a honest price : 199 euros for the EeePc, and 35 euros/month for one year subscription to 3G+ service.