Novatel U950 (Ovation MC950D) with Bell Canada on Ubuntu 9.10

In the turmoil of me trying to reach experts and other supports guys at Bell they sent me a Novatel U950 as a "solution" to my problem, little did they know that this U950 also had the very same problem, but anyway, it helped me find the solution.

So if you wish to make a Novatel U950 (Ovation MC950D) work with Ubuntu 9.10 on the Bell Canada networks it's exactly the same steps as described above for the U998 except that you don't have to do the rmmod and modprobe commands (somehow Ubuntu already knows that the U950's 0x1410:0x4400 usbid is a usbserial device)

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If you wonder how I found out the "inet.bell.ca" (which would be comprehensible if you are not a bell canada customer) I used a Windows XP PC, installed the Bell Windows compatible software to connect to the internet and then did a Start->Run->regedit
and then I parsed the info related to the software... hint: in regedit use the Ctrl-F feature and look for: gprsAPN

after hitting the F3 button a couple of times it should bring you to the setting that interests you.

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Hello Denis-Carl:

Thank you very much for the detailed instructions - at my level of linux experience the way you presented them was extremely helpful.

I got as far as:

ATZ
OK
AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","inet.bell.ca"
OK
ATDT*99#
CONNECT HSDPA 7.2

and then a 'Login Terminal Window' appears with 'Cancel' and 'Continue' buttons at the bottom. I pressed 'Continue' and it failed and the following appeared in the log:

"The remote system is required to authenticate itself but I couldn't find any suitable secret(password) for it to use to do so."

When I use the modem in Xp, it never asks for a PW, it just connects. I tried 'regedit' to see if a PW was buried in the registry along with 'inet.bell.ca' but I found no PW there.

Also, in the 'terminal window' I get: "Authentication Rejected, reason: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed."

If you have any suggestions as to how to proceed, I would appreciated them.

Thanks,

Man!!!! I didn't know you guys were already so close to the solution... I hacked my way into linux and spent days trying to get the Bell stick working on Ubuntu 9.10, and finally got it working but used the wrong APN and guess what? Bell calls me and says I got a $500 bill!!! I refuted this bill over the phone and they said I wrecked my service agreement when I installed linux so you are SCREWED. LOL WHAT THE CRAP?!

Anyways I had a rough day to say the least.

So now I got it all working in Ubuntu:

1. Turn Off the Laptop
2. Put the stick in
3. Turn it on
4. When it tries to connect, Enter *99# in the broad band's number field
5. Enter inet.bell.ca in the APN field

That's it. Tell me if this works for you.

S5

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Thank you.

I just solved my problem too! I am writing this from my Linux/Novatel U998 connected laptop!!!!!

Because I am a real newbie and I don't know wtf I am doing, I never properly read the error msgs I was getting.

I followed Denis-Carl's instructions, Dec 18 2009, to the letter but could not get connected. I kept getting a number of error msgs from kppp, so, I kept fiddling with the configuration - the error said something about the remote system is required to authenticate itself. I figured that this was caused by how I set up my 'account' in kppp, well, that wasn't the problem.

After alot of frustrating attempts in Debian, I tried Puppy, only to fail even more miserably because I couldn't even get kppp or wvdial to work; and that's after downloading every package etc that exists on the internet concerning kppp, wvdial, modems, usb's etc.

Back to Debian. I read every error msg carefully as there were more than one. The one I ignored, because I am an idiot, was the one that suggested that I read the kppp readme file - I thought that, because kppp was executing, there could be nothing wrong with it's own configuration, right? WRONG!!!!!

All I had to do was:

1) create a 'dip' group (what ever the hell that is) and add every user on my system to it.

2) uncomment "noauth" in the kppp-options file.

The trouble with newbie's is that they don't know how to use, or even understand, the tools they must use to fix the problems that they don't know how to use or even understand! Understand?

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all you help in solving this issue as well as all the others that I have posted.

Now, I think I'll surf the net on my Linux / Novatel U998 connected laptop.

1. Start computer with u998 usb modem inserted
2. Right click on Mobile Connect and eject
In terminal:
3. sudo rmmod option
4. sudo rmmod usbserial
5. sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1410 product=0x7030
6. lsusb .... you should see vendor and product in 5 above
7. sudo gedit /etc/init.d/rc.local
and add the these lines: modprobe -r usbserial
and: modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1410 product=0x7030
save and restart computer

8. connect with network icon on top right of panel

You might need to setup connection ... click on gsm network

enter provider as you like .... maybe Bell Canada
enter service ........ inet.bell.ca

You may have to restart computer.

I did this on the fly and may have missed something or some of this may not be needed. So please someone refine my post and let me know and I can elaborate if needed. ****THIS WORKS !!! ****

Charles

P.S. I am using Ubuntu 9.10 to do this
And be sure to do all updates before trying this

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