As most of you are aware now, Ubuntu Intrepid sports a funky new Network Connections manager that allows you to easily and effortlessly setup new ethernet devices, VPN connections and as a boon for laptop users, Mobile Broadband. The idea behind Mobile Broadband is to take advantage of cheap 3G or HSDPA Broadband adapters so you can connect to the Internet while on the move.

Less widely known is that you don’t actually have to use these devices to get Mobile Broadband on the go. You can use your own 3G or HSDPA mobile phone if packet data is enabled on your phone plan. I have previously covered how to do this via Bluetooth and fiddling around with RFComm configuration and PPP chat scripts, but NONE of this is needed any longer under Ubuntu Intrepid.

EDIT August 2009: If you wish to setup your Nokia N95 using Bluetooth instead of a USB cable, then stop reading any further and refer to my updated article for Bluetooth using Ubuntu Jaunty.

Purpose: To setup a Nokia N95 (or similar 3G or HSDPA capable mobile phone) as a Mobile Broadband device to an Ubuntu Intrepid based laptop and connect to the Internet via a mobile network carrier.

Pros:

• Internet available anywhere at anytime (as long as you are in a signal area)
• Reasonably quick – faster than dial-up!
• True mobile Internet – you are not physically connected to a wall socket – you can surf the Internet while you drive your car, or ride a train.
• Convenient

Cons:

• Eats up your mobile’s battery.
• Internet access via mobile phones can be costly.
• You cannot receive voice calls whilst using your mobile phone as a Mobile Broadband device.

Pre-requisites:

• Any 3G or HSDPA capable mobile phone. In this example I will be using my Nokia N95 which is both 3G and HSDPA capable.
• A data plan with your mobile provider. In this example, I will be using Vodafone Australia.
• USB lead to connect your phone directly to your PC (Bluetooth cannot be used in this example, at least not yet, since Network Manager does not yet support connecting through RFComm (to allow connection to a Bluetooth device) – when this support has been added, I’ll update this article. There is a bug reported on Ubuntu Launchpad regarding this already).
• Laptop or desktop PC with Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex installed. In this example, I will be using my EeePC 701 legtop.

Difficulty rating: You could do it in the dark. With bells on.

WARNING: Internet access via your mobile phone can be a costly exercise. Make sure you are fully aware of how much your provider charges for packet data access so you don’t get any nasty surprises on your bill. In my case, Vodafone Australia charge $0.90 per 5 minutes of access or part thereof, regardless of whether data was downloaded or not in that 5 minutes. There is no upper data limit.

1. Fire up Ubuntu on your laptop/desktop as normal.
   .
2. In your system tray, look for the Network Connection icon and do a single right-mouse click on it. You will be presented with a menu. From it, choose “Edit Connections…”:
   .



3. You will then be presented with the Network Connections window, of which you should already see at least one wired connection there (your PC’s ethernet port):
   ..
4. We’re not actually interested in this section, however – we want the Mobile Broadband tab, so click on that and you will see the following:
   ..
5. Now click on the “Add” button. You will be presented with a Wizard for setting up a new Mobile Broadband connection. Click Forward until you see the following window:
   .
   .
   
6. Choose the country and provider relevant to you (Australia & Vodafone in my case) and then click Forward.
   .
7. You’ll be asked to confirm your selection. Confirm it by clicking on the Apply button. You should now see Vodafone listed in the Network Connections window.
   .
   .
8. Now click the “Close” button. We’re done for this part.
   .
9. Connect your USB data lead to your mobile phone and then connect it to your PC.
   .
10. Nokia N95′s generally prompt for what mode you would like the phone to be in. Most people would plump for “Data transfer” mode to utilise the phone as a USB flash drive, but we’re not going to do that. Choose “PC Suite” instead.

    
    Click for full size (201K)
    .

11. Confirm that the phone connected to Ubuntu as a USB ACM device by checking the output of dmesg. In a terminal window, type in the following:

    $ tail /var/log/messages

    …which will show the last 10 lines. You should see something similar to this:

    Nov 19 11:16:37 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9987.192045] usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
    Nov 19 11:16:37 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9987.406518] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.149546] cdc_acm 1-2:1.10: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.153658] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.154256] cdc_acm: v0.26:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.241789] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.272359] usb 1-2: bad CDC descriptors
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.273520] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.292404] usb 1-2: bad CDC descriptors
    Nov 19 11:16:39 eeepc701 kernel: [ 9989.292965] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

    (I’m not entirely sure why I got the “bad CDC descriptors” error, but this didn’t stop the phone from setting itself up, so I ignored it).
    .

12. When Ubuntu detects the ACM device, it recognises that there is a Mobile Broadband device connected and it will enable Vodafone for selection from the Left-Click menu of the Network Connections system tray icon.

    

    .
    Additionally, you will see that the phone itself will show a USB icon confirming that it is talking to the PC via USB.

    
    Click for full size (310K)
    .

13. Upon choosing Vodafone from the menu, a PPP session will immediately be automatically started in the background (you can see it occur in /var/log/messages) and once handshaking with your provider is complete, Ubuntu will confirm that you are connected to the Internet via your mobile provider:
    .
    



14. You should now be able to open your browser and get to the Internet without a problem! As you surf, depending on your model of phone, it may indicate data packets transferring with an icon on the phone’s display. In my case, the 3G icon lights up.
    .
15. When you are done with the Internet, don’t forget to shutdown the connection by going back to the single-left-click menu of the Network Connections icon in the System Tray and select “Disconnect” from the menu.
    .
16. That’s it! Happy mobile Internetting!