Raspberry Pi Forums

Is it possible to use an i Wireless (affiliate of T-mobile) USB mobile broadband card with the RPi? I'm mostly concerned about the drivers (whether they exist or not). The packaging for the card says that it works with Windows and Mac.

It would depend on what make and model of USB broadband card. T-Mobile cards up to and including the Rocket 2.0 appear to be able to run on Linux Desbian according to various Google search results like

http://www.fogel.ca/2010/10/05.....ianubuntu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....ng_systems

Not sure about the current Rocket 3.0 cadr from T-Mobile. The following list only shows the Verizon modem as directly supporting Linux

http://reviews.cnet.com/modems.....008-4.html

A little more time on Google might give you a better answer

I think the root of my question lies in the fact that I have actually never used Linux before (gasp!). I know that binaries created for an x86 machine won't run on the RPi, so I don't know how one would obtain drivers for this stuff unless the drivers are embedded in the OS (plug and play). Am I on the right track here?

If you have one, plug it into a linux box and see if it gets detected, see what the driver module is called. Even then it would be hard to tell for sure, maybe go about it a different way, see it it works with one of the -wrt distros?. Most likely easy to google if you understand how limux drivers work

Try it on Linux, there is a good chance it will work. If you are not familiar with Linux then http://www.sakis3g.org/ will come handy. In case you manage to connect, I don't see why it would not work on the RPi...

Eric Middleton said:


I think the root of my question lies in the fact that I have actually never used Linux before (gasp!). I know that binaries created for an x86 machine won't run on the RPi, so I don't know how one would obtain drivers for this stuff unless the drivers are embedded in the OS (plug and play). Am I on the right track here?



hey eric,

if you've never used linux before i'd guess the easiest first test would be to get a live-cd of a bigger linux distro, for example ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/download.....u/download is quite popular with people peeking into the linux world, boot of that cd and after plugging in your stick see if it works.

if it works, then with all likelyhood it will also be possible to use it on the raspi...

if it doesn't work out of the box, that still doesn't necessarily mean it won't work on the raspi, just that some more testing will have to be done...

i don't know about your "skillz" (tm) but just booting the image in a virtual machine (instead of burning the cd and then booting from it) will probably also do...

PS: 5 + 12 = 11h? seems legit...

MarshallBanana said:


Eric Middleton said:


I think the root of my question lies in the fact that I have actually never used Linux before (gasp!). I know that binaries created for an x86 machine won't run on the RPi, so I don't know how one would obtain drivers for this stuff unless the drivers are embedded in the OS (plug and play). Am I on the right track here?


hey eric,

if you've never used linux before i'd guess the easiest first test would be to get a live-cd of a bigger linux distro, for example ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/download.....u/download is quite popular with people peeking into the linux world, boot of that cd and after plugging in your stick see if it works.

if it works, then with all likelyhood it will also be possible to use it on the raspi...

if it doesn't work out of the box, that still doesn't necessarily mean it won't work on the raspi, just that some more testing will have to be done...

i don't know about your "skillz" (tm) but just booting the image in a virtual machine (instead of burning the cd and then booting from it) will probably also do...

PS: 5 + 12 = 11h? seems legit...


I should probably explain a bit more about myself and the purpose behind getting the cellular modem to work. I have a lot of experience with computers in general. I have made several computers for myself, family and friends and I am an experienced Windows programmer. I used a live CD of puppy linux a couple times to test out old computers with no hard drives and I used GParted several times to partition hard drives for windows. That is about the extent of my experience with linux.

I don't actually have the cellular modem in question yet. I plan on buying it will the sole purpose of connecting it to my RPi. I'm making a small autonomous RPi-based quadrocopter and I want to give it an internet connection so I can communicate with it wherever it is. I have no use for the modem outside of that, so if I buy it and it doesn't work, I'm screwed.

(Sorry if this post doest make sense. I just woke up)

I have the same problem trying to connect an older verizon modem, model: USB760. I googled 'install usb760 verizon linux' and got some results but none of them worked for me. I just realized novatel is the maker of the card so im thinking of googling under that.

CH3ST3R wrote:I have the same problem trying to connect an older verizon modem, model: USB760. I googled 'install usb760 verizon linux' and got some results but none of them worked for me. I just realized novatel is the maker of the card so im thinking of googling under that.

You could always connect your modem through one of those 3G routers. Right now my Pi is connected to one (TP-Link).

But i need the modem to be directly connected to the pi. I plan to make some sort of hacking toolkit with the pi at the center. Also does anyone know if the verizon modem will act as a wifi adapter? This would be great.

5 years later and a different cell network probably but see
viewtopic.php?t=159344

There are at least 2 main ways to do it. One connects it as a modem through PPP and you use the AT command set like on a dialup landline modem. That's probably not what you want unless for some reason you're stuck with it.

Pay attention to the usb_modeswitch part first off, the modem (I have a Huawei E3372) can appear as several different devices depending what mode it's set to. The second half of the number you see from lsusb will actually change (reboot, etc. required probably). Mine showed up as cdc_ether in dmesg after that: "cdc_ether 1-1.4.1.2:1.0 eth1: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-3f98000". That eth1 is now a local network device name, so to my /etc/network/interfaces I added a section: You can test it with ifup: Which means you got an IP address from the modem acting as a DHCP server. My Huawei modem by default is on 192.168.8.1. Open a web browser on the Pi and go to http://192.168.8.1 (or whatever offered you an IP address). It's a little sluggish generally, but there are several configuration pages (and help pages) you can access once you get this far. Huawei's default username is admin with password admin. If your sim isn't working right you'll find that out on the first page you hit. I don't actually have mine working yet because I'm in a fringe area and even with 2 external antennas the modem can't find a usable signal. Ironically I see only a T-Mobile signal but I need AT&T. I think my antennas are cut for the wrong frequency range (there are several).