Are you using a USB HSDPA/EDGE/UMTS 3G Modem on pfSense?

cmb

Verizon UM175 works. We'll start a page with known working cards at some point. It's only usable with 2.0.

mp

Thank you both for your replies!

gnhb

USB Connect Mercury = Sierra Wireless Compass 885 or C885. (Com port is cuaU0.4 (and cuaU0.5 works as well but it's not documented.))

USB Connect Mercury is AT&T rebranding.

I'm now using a Huawei E169 which works as well. Com port is cuaU0.0 for the E169.

I've also used a MC950D from Novatel Wireless, but they seem to be not as common any more. Com port for this is also cuaU0.0

GB

stevewm

Is there some sort of GUI that shows signal strength from 3G modems?

I use a Verizon UM175 as my main internet connection at home (live out in the boonies, dialup barely even works). I currently use a simple Atom machine running XP with ICS as my "router". ICS screws up constantly. Having pFSense running the show instead would be great!

cmb

@stevewm:

Is there some sort of GUI that shows signal strength from 3G modems?

For some, there will be RRD graphs with signal strength. For the UM175 in particular, we have a utility that pulls those stats and is supposed to be graphing it via RRD, though it has a problem at the moment. It was just fixed in the builds so tomorrow's snapshots should be ok.

cmb

btw, it is very stable with the UM175, I wouldn't hesitate using that in production now. Mine gets great throughput, and since it was initially implemented and everything fixed early this year, never had a problem with it, always been rock solid. We have some 2.0 boxes in the field in production with UM175 cards.

gnhb

@cmb:

For the UM175 in particular, we have a utility that pulls those stats and is supposed to be graphing it via RRD

What is the utility? I'd like to add the capability to get stats from the C885 and the E169 and whatever else I can get my hands on. :)

gnhb

I found the utility. It doesn't look easy to extend to other devices, at least by me.

Now, hijacking my own thread, I know . . .

I've been thinking for a while about creating a (much simpler) tool to send a query to the diagnostic serial ports on a 3G modem to get the signal strength. I think AT+CSQ is a standard query and all the modems I've encountered support it. However, I wasn't planning on doing an historical graphing, just displaying current signal strength. This is from my Sierra Wireless C885
–----------
at+csq
+CSQ: 20,99

OK

Here's a graph relating the CSQ # to dbm of signal strength. http://www.gprsmodems.co.uk/images/csq1.pdf

I've testing using just
#echo at+csq > /dev/cuaU0.3
#cat /dev/cuaU0.3

but the trouble is that the C885 modem never sends a character that makes cat finish catting if you know what I mean. Cat just sends an endless repeat of the same data from the serial port to the terminal.

So . . . a slightly more sophisticated program is necessary to send the query to the serial port and get the response back. I thought it could be a command line program that could take the device and the command as arguments. (I would have done it already, but I don't have enough experience with unix programming in C.)
Another upside is that this same program can be used to query the modems and automatically set up the serial ports for the users based on the device type. Whaddyathink?

GB

cmb

@gnhb:

I found the utility. It doesn't look easy to extend to other devices, at least by me.

It's not, Andrew Thompson who wrote that for us (as well as a number of the 3G drivers in FreeBSD) said each vendor has a different way of doing that. Checking with him on the feasibility of at+csq. He could adapt 3gstat to pull that without a whole lot of trouble I think.

mlanner

Has anyone tried either one of these two MiniPCI Express modems?:

Novatel 5520 Mobile
UMTS/HSDPA Sierra Wireless MC8775

… with an Alix6B2 board?

I know a bunch of USB modems would work, but I can't use one of those for this deployment. It will have to be an "embedded" module.

I'm considering getting all the hardware to do some testing, but if possible would like to know which modem to get.

Thanks in advance!

torontob

Hi,

Anyone using Alix boards in Canada in conjunction wtih USB keys?

Thanks

dimi3

I',m using Alix board with Huawei E220 working verry good.

Last days I'm trying Vodafone k3765 USB stick, it has 7.2Mbit support, but doesent work with latest pfsense snapshot :(, I hope that this modem will be supported in future, becouse its much smaller and plugs directly to USB port it getets detected by the system but log says that modem does not respond to AT command?i

regards,

cmb

@torontob:

Anyone using Alix boards in Canada in conjunction wtih USB keys?

Yes, not in Canada, but the cards are the same regardless of where you are.

mlanner

Yes, but like cmb's reply, not in Canada. I've successfully used a Huawei E181 USB (GSM/WCDMA/HSDPA) stick with pfSense 2.0 BETA4 on the T-Mobile USA's network. The Huawei E180 should work too since it is has the same firmware as the E181, with the only difference between the two models being the WCDMA frequency bands they support. Chances are that many/most other Huawei modems will work too, but I have yet to test that.

torontob

Is this supported in version 1.2.3?
Can it be used as a backup or in load-balance mode with a DSL PPoE?

Thanks

mlanner

I haven't tried, but I don't think so. I think it would require loading drivers for those cards. In 2.0 it pretty much just works.

cmb

@torontob:

Is this supported in version 1.2.3?
Can it be used as a backup or in load-balance mode with a DSL PPoE?

No and yes.

torontob

Any plans to get it working with version 1.2.3.

By the way, when would version 2.0 become stable?

Thanks

cmb

@torontob:

Any plans to get it working with version 1.2.3.

By the way, when would version 2.0 become stable?

No, and sometime this year.

MADI

hi i have the usb modem: huwai cdma. i want use it to pfsense . but pfsense don't see it as a usb modem. pfsense see it as a storage mass. somoene can help me to use it. think