Mike Southby

The need to be able to conduct business whilst on the move is becoming more and more integrated into the way we go about our daily work; gone are the days when you can ignore email between point A and point B simply because you do not have access to your inbox.  For me working in the IT sector this is ever more important, I need to be able to stop the car almost anywhere and be able to remotely connect to a clients network when they need help – having to wait until I ‘get in front of my machine‘ simply is no longer an option if you want to succeed in today’s marketplace.

As you will know if you are a regular visitor to my blog, I am a huge fan of the majority of Microsoft’s products.  Perhaps it stems from the fact I chose the Microsoft career path and studied towards my MCSE and MCSA; perhaps it’s because 80% of the clients I deal with and the computers I maintain utilise Windows as their primary OS.  Either way, Microsoft – and Windows more specifically – are an integral part of my daily life.  Back on topic and moving back to my original point, the need to remain connected whilst out of the office is easily overcome when using a Windows OS, there are plenty of mobile data cards and USB data sticks now on the market, most if not all the big telecommunications providers supply them at competitive rates.  All of these products come supplied with connection software to get you connected – Windows connection software.

Now I am not saying some of them do not come with alternative software for Linux or Mac for example, if I did I’m sure I would be proved wrong but certainly the ones I have experience with (Vodafone, o2 and BT) do not.  So that leaves a problem for people who are wanting to make the switch to Linux, including the ever popular Ubuntu distribution – it may work well in the office or at home but if it doesn’t allow use whilst mobile too, why not simply use Windows?  Hardware support in Ubuntu has come on a very long way in the last few years, I remember only a year ago when I last gave Ubuntu a proper test that I was stuck when it came to using my data card.  With the Linux knowledge I had at the time, I simply could not get it to work; I’m pleased to see that Ubuntu and Linux generally have come on a long way since and now work almost as well as Windows, if not equally.

I run my ThinkPad in a dual-boot configuration, using mainly Windows 7 but also using Ubuntu as often as I can.  Today I thought I would have another go at configuring my mobile data card, sure enough I have been surprised by the ease at which the latest evolution of Ubuntu – v9.10 – handles hardware which a year ago, would have caused major headaches.

Note: For the purpose of this guide, I am using a BT mobile data stick, a rebranded Huawei E180 HSPDA USB data stick on a BT Tariff.  The contract is a 12 month plan as supplied with either BT Total Broadband or BT Business Broadband as an optional extra.

Prerequisites: I am assuming that you already have Ubuntu 9.10 installed and running and that your data card has previously been activated either by using it with the BT Connection Manager software in a Windows environment, or by activating the SIM in a Vodafone handset (BT curiously use the Vodafone network); also that the security PIN lock on the device has been disabled.

Configuring the data card for use is actually a relatively simple and pain free process:

• Plug the data stick into a spare USB slot on your machine, after a few seconds the device will be mounted automatically and on your screen you’ll see 2 icons appear for the BT software embedded into the data stick (shown as a mounted CD) and the USB storage facility of the data stick [screenshot]
• Right click on the network notification in the system tray and choose Edit Connections
• Click the Mobile Broadband tab and the Add a new connection
• You’ll be asked to choose a connection, you should only have one option HUAWEI Technology HUAWEI Mobile then click Forward
• Next choose Britain (UK) followed again by Forward [screenshot]
• On the next screen – strangely – you need to choose Vodafone as the provider and not BT Mobile, BT Mobile now use Vodafone to provide their connectivity so we choose this as a base configuration.  Click Forward
• You now need to confirm the type of contract you have followed by Forward
• Next you’ll be asked to confirm your settings [screenshot], click Apply
• Click Edit to edit your setting for the new connection you have just made and make the following changes under the Mobile Broadband tab [screenshot]:
  Number:  *99#
Username:  bt
Password:  bt
APN:  btmobile2.bt.com
Network:  (blank)
PIN:  (blank)
PUK:  (blank)
• Move onto the PPP Settings tab and click Configure Methods.  Uncheck all of the options apart from CHAP [screenshot].  Click OK
• Make sure that Allow BSD, Allow Defalte Data, User TCP Header Compression are all checked, next click on IPv4 Settings
• Ensure the drop down list is set to Automatic (PPP) [screenshot]
• Finally, change the connection name to something more suitable, I have used BT HSDPA [screenshot] but choose whatever you wish here, click Apply to confirm the settings

You have now configured you data card!

To connect simply click on the connection icon and then choose the new connection – you should now see the pop up to tell you that you are connected [screenshot].

I have not noticed any difference in connection speeds when using my data card with either Ubuntu or Windows 7; in both environments the connection seems very stable and I’m pleased with the overall connectivity.

Note:  Whilst the default settings are working absolutely fine for me, I have had previous issues with BT generally in so much as there DNS servers can often take a long time to resolve addresses; this applies both to their mobile data and Broadband services.  The actual data connection themselves are however always reliable and pretty quick.  If you find this a problem change the default DNS servers to an alternate provider, I recommend the servers provided by OpenDNS; 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222 respectively.  Of course this also applies to any ISP if you find resolution is taking longer than you expected, including home broadband connections.

I hope you find this useful.  Enjoy.

I read something very topical this morning for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I have for a number of years now been very dismayed at the quality of broadband this country (on average) has to offer. According to official reports, the average actual speed available to UK users is 3Mbps, not exactly staggering when you consider comparisons to the rest of Europe where according to official figures, the nearest lowest average speed is 4.6Mbps, now I know that doesn’t seem a huge step but remember we are talking average speeds and actually, 1.6Mbps DOES make a significant difference to heavy users. Now take a look at the claimed average speeds available according to the ISPs, here in the UK they will have you believe that on average we can get 10Mbps, sounds much better even if a little unrealistic but again, taking a look further afield into Europe and you’ll see they can achieve according to ISP reports speeds of up to 44Mbps on average.  OK, I understand that the limitations are massively influenced by existing technology and the huge financial and logistical implication of upgrading an old network under live conditions, but surely we can do better than 3Mbps..?

The second reason this post is topical has nothing to do with broadband.  Growing up, my dad using to keep and race pigeons, he still does actually so it’s something which whilst being a little strange to a lot of people, always catches my eye when I read something about it in the press.  Kind of takes me back to my childhood days.

So on to the story which caught my eye.

Going back to my original point about broadband, it promised to unite the world with alleged super-fast data speeds allowing us to conduct business globally in real time.  But in South Africa, a recent experiment has proven that the internet is no faster than a pigeon!  A Durban IT company decided to run a race between an 11 month old racing pigeon carrying a 4GB memory stick and the time it took to transfer a 4GB file using ADSL connections from the country’s biggest ISP, Telkom.  This I thought would make interesting reading.

Winston, the pigeon, took two hours to carry the data 60 miles – in the same time; the ADSL had sent only 4% of the data! Amazing.

Telkom said that it was not responsible for the company’s slow internet speeds (funny, I remember BT telling me the same thing not so long ago blaming BT Open Reach; hang on, aren’t they all the same at the end of the day?).  The idea behind the race came from a member of staff at the Durban Company, Unlimited IT, after staff there complained about the speed of their ADSL connection.  Flippantly, they joked that it would be faster to send the data by carrier pigeon.  “We renown ourselves on being innovative, so we decided to test that statement” said Unlimited’s Kevin Rolfe.  Winston took off from Unlimited IT’s call centre in the town of Howick to deliver the memory stick to the firm’s office in Durban.  According to Winston’s website (http://www.pigeonrace2009.co.za) there were strict rules in place to ensure he had no unfair advantage. They included ‘no cats allowed’ and ‘birdseed must not have any performance-enhancing seeds within’.  The firm said Winston took one hour and eight minutes to fly between the offices, and the data took another hour to upload onto their system.  Mr Rolf said the ADSL transmission of the same data size was about 4% complete in the same time.

Back to the UK and back to reality.

I guess I should count myself lucky.  The telephone exchange that I am connected to is a rural one; it does not offer any LLU services and probably pre-dates the Arc.  I live around 4km away from the exchange according to the route my copper takes so when I recently moved and placed an order for broadband I was slightly perturbed that I would not have an reliable connection, perhaps only 1-2Mbps if I was lucky.  Certainly according to BT Wholesales ADSL checker I was told to expect a service of 2Mbps.  However, I’m sat here today typing this on a nice stable connection in the region of 4.5Mbps, not exactly the 10Mbps average that BT claim but not too bad all things considered.  I’ve been spoilt in reality over the years working in the IT sector and having had leased lines and more recently ADSL2+ Burst lines giving me speeds in excess of 20Mbps reliably, but it seems that as times have moved on, the technology is lagging far behind.

I know there are lots of plans in the pipeline to revolutionise the infrastructure here in the UK, to actually deliver the kind of speeds we have been promised over the last few years but call me a cynic, it wouldn’t be the first time plans have not come to fruition.  I prefer hard action to plans, I would like to see things changing, I would like to see us taking a step forward and leading the ‘Broadband Revolution’.

Come on Britain.  Come on BT.  Give us something special; give us something to stand out from the rest of the EU, from the rest of the World.  I’d like to think I will be reading an article on how we lead the world technologically in the not too distant future and not an article on how Downing Street has taken to keeping pigeons…