Mobile Internet (DST) in Ubuntu with a Nokia E51

I heard about Ubuntu’s 3G support quite a while back, but yesterday was the first time I actually tried it out. This was done using a Nokia E51 connected via USB with a DST Easi card with Ubuntu 9.04. Please note of the importable troubleshooting note below

1. Connect the phone and set connectivity mode to “PC Suite”
2. A configuration wizard should pop up as shown below:

    

   If the wizard does not show, start it manually by following these steps:

   1. Go to the Ubuntu Menu: System > Preferences > Network Connections
   2. Go to the “Mobile Broadband” tab and click the “Add” button
      
3. Select the any setting as they will be manually edited later. For this example I chose Albania and Vodafone as the country and provider respectively as it has minimal configuration changes
   
4. Give the connection a name: “dst.internet”
   
5. Go to Network connections (System > Preferences > Network Connections) and edit the newly created connection
   
6. Ensure the configuration is as follows:
   • Number: *99#
   • APN: dst.internet
   • Username and password can be left blank
   • If the Albania > Vodafone settings were used, only the APN needs to be changed

   

   

   

   

    

7. Left click the network manager applet and connect to the newly created “dst.internet” connection

   

8. Enjoy your mobile broadband =)
    

Now I wonder if this works for the DST Go! and bmobile Zoom! modems….

Troubleshooting Note

If you have a problem connecting please note this bug that causes the connection to timeout if there is a shell running as root. So close all terminals open. It took me 2 hours to figure this out so I hope you won’t have to suffer the same.