Re: 3G USB support for NM 0.7 (II)

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 12:58 -0500, Keith Smith wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>   I am happy to report that 3G Sierra Wireless 598 CDMA modem
> (EVDO-RevA) is working very well with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook remix.  I
> downloaded the 1G image for USB key, booted off it, then installed it
> into a new partition...  HOWEVER, the 9.04 netbook remix runs very,
> very slow (15 seconds to switch apps) on my Dell Inspiron Mini 1210.
> After a quick search, I found that others also had poor performance,
> so now I am going to replace it with the 9.04 lpia distro.  Other
> distros are 9.04 desktop.  Since the 8.04 hardy was a lpia distro, and
> it was working well, I am going to try it out...
> 
>   Before reverting to another distro, I wanted to document the
> configuration that is working.
> 
>   Note: I was reading that Sierra Wireless have made upgrades to the
> kernel which allow it to detect their device correctly in 9.04
> (2.6.28-11-generic), with Sierra Wireless driver version v.1.3.2.  The
> driver even detects the USB storage on the modem and mounts it as a
> SCSI drive.  USB /dev/usbtty0,1,2,3 appear.
> 
>   Reading some of the Sierra wireless posts, they have issues with
> 9.10, and do not support distro 9.10 for their devices....TBC.
> 
>   The operation I found is, when the device is installed, it shows up
> in the network manager list as an "auto CDMA", then I have to select
> "Connect".  It does connect, and remains connected even if I disable
> my Wi-Fi and re-enable it... I would have assumed that it should
> detect that prevously available Wi-Fi has returned and at least try to
> switch back to Wi-Fi.  The reason I mention that is for a non
> technical user, once the CDMA is active, they will stay on the $$$
> expensive connection until they manually disconnect...  I suppose that
> one simply has to pull out the USB modem to disconnect....

Not entirely; NM supports multiple active devices.  But the "best"
device will get the default route, so if you have wifi connected then
all new connections will go over wifi instead of 3G even if the 3G is
still connected.  While you're connected you aren't incurring any
charges, you're only being charged for the traffic going through the
device.

But that makes me think maybe people want something like a "Disconnect
and ignore this connection when a better one is available" option or
something like that.  It's been requested for WiFi too.

>   I would also like to know if there is a way to log the amount of
> data downloaded / uploaded via the 3G device (ie: don't go over 1GB
> per month = $$$)

Not yet, but that's on the plate for NM 0.8.1:

http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManager/ReleaseProcess

Dan