Connect to the internet via an UMTS connection using SUSE 11.0

From Linuxintro
Note
This is an outdated howto, kept here to show how it used to be. Today you would typically use your mobile phone, set up a hotspot, and connect your computer to it.


To surf via UMTS under Linux in Germany, I choose SUSE 11.0 Linux and a Fonic Surf Stick. It may work same or similar with another hardware, distribution or country. Do the following steps as root:

yast -i umtsmon
  • attach your USB device Surf Stick
  • Start umtsmon, enter your pin
  • Choose Connection|Manage profiles
  • Add a profile with the APN pinternet.interkom.de, save it
  • Click Connection|Connect.

It works now:

 tweedleburg:~ # ping www.heise.de
 PING www.heise.de (193.99.144.85) 56(84) bytes of data.
 64 bytes from www.heise.de (193.99.144.85): icmp_seq=1 ttl=245 time=1158 ms
 64 bytes from www.heise.de (193.99.144.85): icmp_seq=2 ttl=245 time=896 ms
 64 bytes from www.heise.de (193.99.144.85): icmp_seq=3 ttl=245 time=719 ms
 ^C
 --- www.heise.de ping statistics ---
 4 packets transmitted, 3 received, 25% packet loss, time 4291ms
 rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1890.317/2142.079/2282.493/178.426 ms, pipe 3
 tweedleburg:~ # ifconfig
 [...]
 ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
           inet addr:10.70.158.184  P-t-P:10.64.64.64  Mask:255.255.255.255
           UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:266 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:340 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
           RX bytes:112893 (110.2 Kb)  TX bytes:58689 (57.3 Kb)

You can now surf in

  • UMTS
  • GPRS
  • HSDPA and
  • GSM

networks. Umtsmon also supports sending SMS.

TroubleShooting

  • under Ubuntu I got an error message that ppp did not start. Solution was to run umtsmon as root, e.g.:
sudo ./umtsmon

See also