Nokia E66 mobile phone as Internet modem

English Hardware
#1

Nokia’s E66 mobile business phone can be connected to a laptop using its USB data cable, Blue-tooth or Infra-red connections. So far I’ve got the USB connection to work for storage data exchange with my SUSE 11.1 laptop.

The E66 menu selection “PC to Internet” try to start up Windows software (Nokia PC suite I guess).
The other possible selection “Modem” sounds as the alternative for mobile Internet connection from Linux. For one or another reason the E66 “Modem” menu looks to offer infra-red connection as default (I see no other selections here).

So far I haven’t succeeded to discover E66 neither with Network Manager nor with YaST Modem configuration.

Is it possible to use a mobile phone like E66 as a (USB) modem for Linux, possibly how to configure it in SUSE 11.1?

#2

Try this and see what you get sensed by the operating system.

  • Step1: run this command to clear the kernel ring buffer:
sudo dmesg -c

then attach the phone by usb cable, do not make a selection from the menu of options, wait a bit and then run this command to read the buffer again:

dmesg

post the results back here

  • OK that’s step 1 – now for step 2: Run this command again to get a clean slate:
sudo dmesg -c

Then on the mobile phone select the “PC Suite”. Then run this command again:

dmesg

and post the results back here

#3

step 1) dmesg

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 4-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0421, idProduct=00af
usb 4-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 4-2: Product: Nokia E66
usb 4-2: Manufacturer: Nokia
usb 4-2: SerialNumber: 352942024925270
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 6:0:0:0: CD-ROM            Nokia    E66              1.0  PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 0x/0x xa/form2 tray
sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5
usb-storage: device scan complete
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 1
ISOFS: changing to secondary root

step 2) dmesg

usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 2
scsi 6:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device
usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 4-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0421, idProduct=00b0
usb 4-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 4-2: Product: Nokia E66
usb 4-2: Manufacturer: Nokia
cdc_acm 4-2:1.10: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
cdc_acm: v0.26:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
usb 4-2: bad CDC descriptors
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
usb 4-2: bad CDC descriptors
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

After this I had a look into
YaST>Network_Devices>Modem
which appeared as
Nokia E66 - not configured

#4

Here’s the key from dmesg:

cdc_acm 4-2:1.10: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

Go ahead and configure it in Yast (leave pc suite as the mode). Use this guide:
Wireless HSDPA broadband in Suse/openSUSE Using Nokia 6120 Mobile Phone as Modem on Three Mobile Australia

#5

Thanks a lot for the help and useful guide. But before I continue I have a couple of follow up questions:

Q1
Should I use or fill in that “key string” somewhere in the Modem configuration with YaST?

Afterwards I think to use the Gnome Dial up tool similar I use it for my CDMA USB D-50 modem (which doesn’t have workable signal all over)

Q2
Network Manager>Edit Connections also contains a tab “Mobile broadband” where “Automatic connections with mobile broadband (GSM)” is an Edit option (beside CDMA).

Is it possible to configure and possibly easier now to use NM also for this type of network?

I didn’t succeed to set this option in NM when I tried. Another thing I discovered, is that the mobile phone power off after some time connected with the usb cable.
Should it?

#6

That’s taken care of by locking /dev/ttyACM0 as the modem device as shown in the screenshot

Afterwards I think to use the Gnome Dial up tool similar I use it for my CDMA USB D-50 modem (which doesn’t have workable signal all over)

In Gnome, I couldn’t use Kinternet at first (it’s a kde thing). So I used nothing but the terminal. You set the network not to use a manager, but to use “traditional method with ifup”. Then when you want a modem connection you open a terminal, enter su to become root and then enter:

ifup modem0

In 60 seconds a connection is negotiated and firefox works. You can check if it’s connected by looking at this command’s return:

sudo /sbin/ifconfig

it returns a message like this:

modem0    Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:124.179.202.95  P-t-P:10.64.64.64  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:6069 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4407 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 
          RX bytes:6990781 (6.6 Mb)  TX bytes:333602 (325.7 Kb)

Once you’re happy that the underlying mechanisms are working and connecting, you could install Gnome dialler and see if that works with it too. Is that in the standard RPMs and what is it called there? I’d like to try it too!

Q2
Network Manager>Edit Connections also contains a tab “Mobile broadband” where “Automatic connections with mobile broadband (GSM)” is an Edit option (beside CDMA).

Is it possible to configure and possibly easier now to use NM also for this type of network?

I didn’t succeed to set this option in NM when I tried. Another thing I discovered, is that the mobile phone power off after some time connected with the usb cable.
Should it?
I couldn’t get any modems to work in either of Gnome’s or KDE’s Network Managers.

I see you progressing like this:

  1. Set for traditional method with ifup
  2. Install the software I listed (except Kinternet because you’re not using KDE)
  3. Configure modem in Yast as per the screenshots
  4. Use the command line tools to turn it on and off and to check how it’s working. First enter su to become root and then these are the tools:

  • To turn it on: ifup modem0

  • To turn it off: ifdow modem0

  • To see if it’s connected (if impatient): ifconfig

  1. Then when it’s going OK, try adding Gnome Dialler to ice the cake as a GUI switching device

Try that and report back – I’d like to know more about Gnomes dialler alternative to the KDE Kinternet app.

Luck

#7

I won’t be back again within a week (holiday) and have to leave the rest until then.

Regarding “Gnome dial up” tool, I’m actually using gnome-ppp-0.3.23-1.1.x86_64.rpm, a gui tool for dial up. It is a somewhat old version build for 10.3 and maybe not maintained longer (saw a newer version for Fedora), but it has worked well for 11.x yet. Searched now and found it here
Index of /opensuse.org/repositories/home:/MBoman/openSUSE_10.3/x86_64

#8

Thanks for the info. Have a great holiday.