Virgin Mobile Broadband2GO sucess

stefan27

I didn't see this posted anywhere, so I thought I would make a topic for the next poor soul who comes along.

After a bit of hair pulling, I managed to make my Novatel MC760 3G USB dongle work with pfsense 2.0 BETA5 running on a Alix. After following the directions in the online documentation, it would not recognize the adapter at first. The magic words to invoke the spirits of cooperation were as follows:

Activate USB dongle on Windows, add some MB or pay for unlimited
IMPORTANT: Open the top left drop down menu on the Virgin Mobile software, select "Settings" then uncheck the "Auto-install" option (this sets the USB adapter to modem mode when first inserted, no more CDROM emulation)
Unplug from Windows machine, then plug into pfSense machine and follow the online documentation

*NOTE: Since the settings change is persistent, you may not want to uninstall the Virgin Mobile software from the Windows machine, as you will need it to someday switch the USB adapter back to normal. Also, the $40/month unlimited offer in the US is expiring on Feb 15th, so you have to activate it and select that option before then be grandfathered in…

I hope this helps someone, and enjoy your homemade wireless 3G router!