[plug] bigpond wireless (maxon) modem

[Chris Caston]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <cobel at bigpond.com>
To: <plug at plug.org.au>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 9:52 AM
Subject: [plug] bigpond wireless (maxon) modem


> Hi there, I have the bigpond (maxon) blue desktop wireless modem (too far 
> out for anything but satt or wifi) and I am trying to get it going with 
> linux. At the moment I am using it successfully with Kubuntu feisty fawn, 
> getting 540kbps
>
> I used the instructions at : http://quozl.netrek.org/bp3-usb/
>
> **note that the location of the kernel module varies as per distribution, 
> and the "\" symbol in the commands means 'line break' - that might sound 
> obvious to some, but not to everyone! trust me...
>
> I used the usbserial module (since I dont know how to patch the airprime 
> module), once that was done and set up with kppp the computer could ping 
> google, and do apt-get functions, but konqueror can not browse, every 
> attempt returns an error like - 'An error occurred while loading 
> http://www.google.com: Could not connect to host http://www.google.com/.'
>
> I then had the idea to apt-get firefox, and that does browse the internet.
>
> so - problem sort of solved, except that the interface ppp0 does not 
> appear in Knetwork setup so I cannot configure it in any way to be the 
> 'default' route, I think this is why konq cannot use the internet 
> connection? It does show up in ifconfig, however.
>
> anyway, at present I am running kubuntu from the CD as I am also having 
> dramas installing it and so far other distros i have tried have not been 
> able to use the modem at all (Puppy Linux, Centos, Mandriva, Suse)
>
> well, anyone with any recent experience with this modem? any input would 
> be helpful, any other distros that are working fine with this modem?
>
> and thank-you to that very helpful soul at tech support who actually 
> talked to me instead of giving me the standard "we dont support linux, we 
> cant help you (now just go away please)" response - you were only the 
> fourth transfer, not too bad for a phone call to telstra/bigpond
>
> ;)


Hi Cobel,

I'm Chris from bigpond. I think Tomasz is referring to TelstraG Next rather 
than Bigpond NextG. Unforuntely I had a ride-on at the time which who kept 
telling me to not to support Linux either ):
Actually it looks like you have got much further than I have. I wasn't even 
able to ping when I tried it on my external Maxon usb modem but then again I 
don't even have an active account I was trying trying with the 
newwbbuser at bigpond.com acct which is only able to connect to the 
registration server. I might have another try again this weekend.

If you think using Linux with NextG has dramas you should see the trouble we 
have been having supporting the Mac. We were supposed to support Maxon USB 
NextG devices on the Mac at the beginning of the year yet they only just 
work now with the latest connection manager and firmware update and most of 
us still dredd getting a call from a Mac user. A lot of our own internal 
knowledgebase articles are out of date for the Mac and some of the 
consultants have written their own support guides which we can access from a 
shared drive in the network.

Unfortunately I don't think it is a winnable battle me for me to campaign 
Bigpond to support Linux but I could help write a guide that could be made 
available on the internet.

Please let me know how it has been going for you in the meantime and I was 
actually glad and excited to (finally) hear from a Linux user.

best regards,

Chris