While some of our forum members are still awaiting delivery of everybody’s favourite Ice Kitteh, plenty of us who rely on mobile broadband products for internet access on the go are suffering at the hands of the chief provider of these devices. Huawei Technologies supply the lion’s share (or should that be Snow Leopard’s share? …sorry) of 3G USB dongles to the Australian Market. Optus and its resellers, Vodafone and 3 all offer various ranges of Huawei’s products such as the E220 soap-onna-rope dongle, or E160G and E169 internet keys.  All of these devices were broken in one way or another with the release of Snow Leopard.

In this edition of MacTalk’s Thursday How-Tos, I’ll give you some background as to the differences between the devices, software versions, connection managers and what you have to do get up and online again. The information is general in nature, however the device I’m using is a 3 Mobile Broadband dongle, so a majority of screenshots will feature 3 Mobile software or settings. At the tail end of the guide I have included as much information as I can find about the settings and APNs required for all carriers, and notes on individual quirks which some carriers have. While compiled by me, this knowledge comes from the hive mind which is our Forums – so my thanks goes out to everybody who has in any way contributed to the discussion surrounding these issues.

Introduction and Background Knowledge

First I’ll give some background as to the three main parts which make up the Huawei package on a Mac.

1. The virtual CD launcher
2. The connection manager software
3. The drivers, kernel extensions and modem scripts

The Virtual CD Launcher (VCDL)

Introduced as of the E169 onwards (sorry soap-onna-ropers), I’m sure to provide that wholesome plug-and-play experience mobile carriers seem to love, the VCDL provides an easy point-and-click way for users to install or launch the Huawei package. Using the wonders of USB mass storage and virtual CD emulation, when you plug in the modem a volume is mounted on your desktop with a single icon you can click on. This package then queries the applications folder of your Mac – if it finds that the connection manager is already installed, it will launch it.  If it cannot find the application, it will run the installer package.

In Snow Leopard, this launcher, is 100%, irreparably, completely and utterly, broken. That’s not the end of the world, but I’ll come back to this later.

The Connection Manager Software

At this stage, there are two versions of the connection manager software. The first version known as Mobile Connect is a very rudimentary dial-up application which can be pre-loaded with the carrier’s settings. The thing looked bloody awful, and rarely worked.  In late 2008 Huawei rewrote Mobile Connect for Windows and Mac, creating the cross-platform java application Mobile Partner.  While still horribly written, it provided a decent interface and finally brought the ability to send and receive SMS from the device.

Both applications still work under Snow Leopard.  There are separate problems with the Mobile Partner application which may rear their heads, however they were present in 10.5.  While both still work, it is important to understand the differences between these applications.

Drivers, Kernel Extensions and Modem Scripts

This is where it gets dangerous and deadly in Snow Leopard.  While it appears to be exactly the same file, it seems that the drivers, kernel extensions and modem scripts which shipped with the Mobile Connect software is not compatible with Snow Leopard.  The modem script isn’t as important as 10.5 introduced generic GPRS/3G modem scripts, these were expanded on in 10.6.  However, the kernel extension is what allows the modem to communicate with OS X.  To put it simply, the kernel extension provided with Mobile Connect renders your device useless.

Fortunately, the kernel extensions from Mobile Partner work swimmingly, and the drivers are backwards-compatible. This means that if you can get your hands on a copy of the newer .kext file you can use your modem again.  This is where this guide aims to help.

Enough talking, just make it work!

Fine, fine – at least now you know…and knowing is half the battle!  The Huawei issues present themselves in two main ways. Either the mobile launcher can’t run, or the drivers in your modem are not supported.  I’ve broken the “fixing it” section into two main parts.  Again, I can only work with what I know which is the range of 3 modems the company I work has collected over the last few years. Your mileage may vary depending on when your carrier asked Huawei to update the software on your modems from Mobile Connect to Mobile Partner.

E220, E169 and early E160G Modems

These modems either have no software on the modem (in the case of the E220), or old software (in the case of the E169s and E160Gs).  We’ve got two E160Gs, and one has old software one has new software – I assume during the production run of these modems 3 had the software updated. As was mentioned earlier, the drivers included with these modems is not compatible with Snow Leopard.

Step 1

Uninstall the existing software, drivers and extensions from your Mac. Delete the following files:

• The Mobile Connect application from Mac HD/Applications. It may be called something like “Optus Mobile Broadband” or “Vodafone NetConnect” depending on your provider.
• The kernel extension located at Mac HD/System/Library/Extensions/HuaweiDataCardDriver.kext
• The modem script located at Mac HD/Library/Modem Scripts/HUAWEI Mobile Connect – 3G Modem

Once these are gone, reboot your mac.

Step 2

Download the MobilePartner.mpkg.  This is the 3 Mobile Broadband software package provided by Huawei for the E180 modem. it includes the Mobile Partner software, and most importantly it includes drivers compatible with Snow Leopard.  Sure its got a 3 logo on it, but its all I’ve got access to.  The connection manager isn’t the important bit, its the drivers that are included.

Download and run the MPKG, once its done you will have to reboot your machine.

Step 3

Now that you have working drivers, you can configure your modem to work directly through the OS. Using Snow Leopard’s handy-dandy screen recording feature I’ve done pretty video for you.

The main differences between carriers are the APN settings used, and whether or not you need to use a username and password. We’ve found at work that sometimes the 3 network will boot you back with a “A connection to the remote PPP server could not be established” if you don’t have a username and password set.  Again, things may be different with your carrier but I’m just showing what I know.

E160G (new firmware), E180 and later

If you already have the MobilePartner software installed on your device, your drivers are already able to run under Snow Leopard. The launcher is still broken, but you can simply navigate to ~/Applications/3 Mobile Broadband/ and launch the 3 Mobile Broadband.app from there. Obviously file and folder names will be changed for your provider.  If you want to use the dialup, follow the settings listed above for the earlier models.

Click to embiggen!

If for some reason you have to reinstall the software from your modem, you can open the virtual CD, right-click or control-click on the icon, select “show package contents”.  Then, navigate to Contents/Resources and run the MobilePartner.mpkg to reinstall.

Carrier-Specific Settings

Now you know HOW to set it up, you need some information on what details are required for your carrier. Thanks to everybody on Twitter who responded to @MacTalk’s request for assistance and hurled APNs at me like rotten fruit upon a poor comedian. I’ve been able to gather the following information for a few carriers.  If your provider’s APN isn’t listed, try asking the forums or contacting your carrier.

• 3 Mobile Broadband (Postpaid): 3netaccess
• 3 Mobile Broadband (Prepaid): 3services
• Optus: Connect
• Internode purchased after 26/08/09: internode
• Internode purchased prior to 26/08/09: splns333a1
• Vodafone: vfinternet.au
• Telstra: telstra.internet

Virgin Mobile Broadband

Virgin – the unloved stepchild of Optus who lives under the stairs – likes to be special.  Yes, that kind of special.  Unlike every mobile broadband provider known to mankind who uses CHAP authentication, Virgin uses PAP.  This means that your username and password is your mobile number.  You also need to change some settings so the default script uses PAP authentication.

Forum member shades advises the following steps for enabling PAP authentication with the generic modem script:

I finally got E169 working on Virgin last night after stuffing around for about an hour. I have a pretty up-to-date firmware on my USB modem, so I downloaded the Huawei drivers, and installed it, then added the connection from Network Prefs.

The one thing I had to do was to create the /etc/ppp/options file with the following contents:

refuse-chap
refuse-mschap
refuse-mschap-v2

This obviously disables CHAP so that it uses PAP authentication, which is perfect for authenticating against the Virgin Broadband servers.

I hope that this has helped some of you guys get back online, but if you’re still feeling lost or have some questions ask the forums by following the comments link.  I recommend reading through the entire thread first, as your questions may have already been answered.