Zein's place on the net » wireless http://ahmed.elze.in/blog my views on Australia, Egypt, Linux and other stuff Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:40:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2 Virgin Mobile Broadband with Ubuntu http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2009/12/27/virgin-mobile-broadband-with-ubuntu/ http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2009/12/27/virgin-mobile-broadband-with-ubuntu/#comments Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:33:43 +0000 Ahmed http://www.azein.com/blog/?p=185 I have being meaning to get myself a mobile broadband USB modem for casual use. It makes sense if you do not want to shell out $15-$20 for wifi an hour. Whenever I take my family for a holiday on the cost, or find myself waiting at an airport I can just get online. The only catch is that you either shell out $150 for 1 year and 10GB of data. or you plan ahead and use $15 to get 500MB valid for 30 days prior to your vacation.

After much deliberation and googling, I decided to go with the Optus network as it has reasonable coverage and has many resellers. I found Virgin Mobile offering their Huawei E1762 modem for $89. This is a 7.2MB modem. It has a microSD slot that supports up to 8GB cards and it even has an external antenna connection.

It works fine in ubuntu 9.10 (that’s all I have tested). But I first had to activate my account via a windows machine. I don’t believe that windows based activation is a necessary step except that I needed a working connection to get the correct setting to configure the ubuntu netbook.

I started off with the default setting offered by network-manager. I then edited the connection and changed the APN to: virginbroadband (was VirginInternet) and disabled all the authentication mechanisms except PAP.

And there you go… it works… I am using it to type this :)

]]> http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2009/12/27/virgin-mobile-broadband-with-ubuntu/feed/ 0 WDS with MSI RG54GS2 and Billion 7401VGP http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2007/07/29/wds-with-msi-rg54gs2-and-billion-7401vgp/ http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2007/07/29/wds-with-msi-rg54gs2-and-billion-7401vgp/#comments Sun, 29 Jul 2007 08:14:19 +0000 Ahmed http://www.azein.com/blog/2007/07/29/wds-with-msi-rg54gs2-and-billion-7401vgp/ It took me a while to figure this out but it is finally working. 1st thing to do is update your MSI firmware. I couldn’t get WDS to work until I flashed the device with firmware R1.97f2.

In my case the Billion is connected to the DSL service so I have disabled the DHCP on the MSI device. I suppose you could have it the other way around if you wish. Make sure that both WEP keys are identical as well as the channel. Also note that the AP will have a MAC for the wired network and another for the wireless network. The correct MAC address can be found on the WDS configuration page. Setup -> WDS in case of the MSI and Configuration -> LAN -> Wireless in the case of the Billion.

You will need to reboot both devices and it should work.

]]> http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2007/07/29/wds-with-msi-rg54gs2-and-billion-7401vgp/feed/ 0 Wireless Networking in the Developing World http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2007/01/07/wireless-networking-in-the-developing-world/ http://ahmed.elze.in/blog/2007/01/07/wireless-networking-in-the-developing-world/#comments Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:07:14 +0000 Ahmed http://www.azein.com/blog/2007/01/07/wireless-networking-in-the-developing-world/ hmm very interesting :)
they even have a free (as in freedom) book!

from the project:

The massive popularity of wireless networking has caused equipment costs to continually plummet, while equipment capabilities continue to increase. By applying this technology in areas that are badly in need of critical communications infrastructure, more people can be brought online than ever before, in less time, for very little cost. We hope to not only convince you that this is possible, but also show how we have made such networks work, and to give you the information and tools you need to start a network project in your local community.

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