In couple of days I am leaving for a vacation (read: long vacation) to my native; and for the duration I have got a Reliance Netconnect USB Broadband connection issued from my company (God bless them).

While I was super estatic (already) about getting it, it soon churned out a new challenge and research topic (duh) for me to make it work on Ubuntu! Hmmm…!

So, after much digging over internet and pulling a string here and there I finally managed to make it work! So, in case your company is also sweet enough to give you a USB Broadband connection .. and you wanna run it on Ubuntu – then – stay tuned as this might be useful:

Step 1: Make your USB detected as modem and not a mass storage device (as our brilliant Ubuntu does implicitily .. huh)

So, to do that, what you need is usb_modeswitch – which is built for exactly the purpose you landed here!

Download it from: https://forge.betavine.net/frs/?group_id=12&release_id=200

( I downloaded: https://forge.betavine.net/frs/download.php/490/usb-modeswitch_0.9.7_i386.deb but you may prefer to choose a different deb based on your machine)

Now install it using Ubuntu’s deb manager or do this on your terminal:

$ dpkg -i usb-modeswitch_0.9.7_i386.deb

Now, having installed usb-modeswitch, you need next to really switch the mode, which you can do by the following command:

$ usb_modeswitch -c /usr/sbin/rlconnect.cnf

Hey wait, what is this rlconnect.cnf ?? Well this is a config file we need to provide to usb-modeswitch with your usb devices details in it. This file reads:

DefaultVendor=  0x19d2
DefaultProduct= 0xfff5

TargetVendor=   0x19d2
TargetProduct=  0xffff

MessageContent=”5553424312345678c00000008000069f030000000000000000000000000000″

I have placed my rlconnect.cnf in /usr/sbin (I know, I know, not the best place to put your config file.. well place it anywhere you want and with any name.. but do make sure to pass the correct name and location to usb-modeswitcher.. God! these folks)

Step 2: Now lets load the usbserial driver (modprobe it) with our USB modem details

Well just run the following for it:

$ modprobe -v usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfff1

Step 3: Now you need to update your dialer’s config

This might seem trickier but Ubuntu by its grace has made it easy for you… just run:

$ wvdialconf

and voila.. its done.. but you may still need to update the dialer’s config file for your correct username and password. So, you can do that by reaching out to the following location:

/etc/wvdial.conf

(Please change only the username and password, trust in me.. rest other properties are better off by you leaving them alone)

Step 4: Connect to the Internet .. Hurray!

Run the following at terminal:

$ wvdial

.. and welcome to web!

To confirm, run ifconfig and check the ip details under ppp .. this shall satsify you (No, I wont tell you to open your browser and put www.google.com in the address bar and try out if you are really connected to the Internet)

Having said so much, if this still does not helps you, then following links should definitely do! .. or if this has already done enough for you and you still wanna dig more.. then do go ahead and dig through the following links:

(These are the links from where I learned, compiled and tried to make it all work on my machine)

1. http://www.tuxhat.com/linux/reliance-netconnect-broadband-on-linux/

2. http://travisneotyler.blogspot.com/2009/07/back-on-wireless-web.html

3. http://thejeshgn.com/2008/01/12/reliance-netconnect-usb-card-on-linux-howto/

4. http://nandz.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-get-reliance-zte-mg880-working.html

5. http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/bb/viewtopic.php?t=134&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Best of luck.. and see you soon on web