In this tutorial, we go through the steps to use 3G cellular USB dongle (Huawei E303s) with pcDuino.

Install the necessary software modules:  usb_modeswitch  libusb-compat  libusb-1.0.0  usb-modeswitch-data

The address to download:  http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/

Libusb-1.0.0 can be installed using:

$sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0.0

Other modules need to be downloaded, unzipped, and installed.  Please follow the instructions on the download website.

After all installations are done, plug in the 3G USB dongle, and use ‘lsusb’ to check the USB device. If successful, we will see:

Bus 003 Device 008: ID 12d1:1f01 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

The next step is to configure “ usb_modeswitch.conf”.

$sudo vi /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf

Append the following lines:

    #Huawei E303
    DefaultVendor = 0x12d1
    DefaultProduct = 0x1f01

Save and exit.

Create file ’12d1:1f01′ under directory ‘/etc/usb_modeswitch.d/’:

$sudo vi /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1:1f01

Edit and insert the following content:

#Huawei E303
DefaultVendor= 0x12d1
DefaultProduct= 0x1f01
TargetVendor= 0x12d1
RargetProduct= 0x1f01
MessageEndPoint = "0x01"
MessageContent="55534243000000000000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000"
NoDriverLoading=1

Save and exit.

If there is no modem information displayed after “Huawei Technologies Co.,Ltd”, we can use the following command:

$usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1\:1f01

Now we type “lsusb” again:

In the above figure, the information of modem is displayed.

Install the necessary software modules for networking :

$sudo apt-get install ppp
$sudo mkdir umtskeeper
$cd umtskeeper
$sudo wget "http://zool33.uni-graz.at/petz/umtskeeper/src/umtskeeper.tar.gz"
$sudo tar -xzvf umtskeeper.gz
$sudo chmod +x umtskeeper
$sudo wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/vim-n4n0/sakis3g.tar.gz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fvim-n4n0%2Ffiles%2F&ts=1363537696&use_mirror=tene~t" -O sakis3g.tar.gz
$sudo tar -xzvf sakis36.tar.gz
$sudo chmod +x sakis3g

Next we run:

$sudo  ./sakis3g  --interactive

The following console will pop up:

Select option 1, and press “ENTER”,

select option 1 again, and press “ENTER”,

Enter APN: 3gnet (the ISP’s APN, please do that according to your need), and enter password to connect.

If connected successfully, the following message will be displayed:

Now we can surf internet using 3G.