Huawei E3372 ( sonera.fi )

[Jouni Laakso]

Hello list,


I wanted to send this information to help others in their quest of 4G connectivity with FreeBSD here at Europes continent and in Finland. Huawei does not include a lot of information about their products. These 4G-network modems are usually provided by the subscriberline companies and with their own products. This one was from Sonera (Teliasonera, .se and .fi) here in Finland.
Huawei E3372 seems to be a CDCE device. /boot/loader.conf has to have a line if_cdce_load="YES". Only usb_modeswitch works with this one. Command:
/usr/local/sbin/usb_modeswitch --default-vendor 0x12d1 --default-product 0x1f01 -J
swithes to the CDCE mode. Device ue0 appears to be configured (with ifconfig -command). Using 'dhclient ue0' a network address is found and using the address and adding a default router the network interface is usable. An admin HTTP-page can be found from http://192.168.1.1. CDCE has two network interfaces at both ends of USB. Both ends can be configured with their own IP-address.
ID:s   idVendor = 0x12d1 idProduct = 0x1f01 are switched to ID:s idVendor = 0x12d1  idProduct = 0x14dc . This seems to be correct since the connection to the Internet succeeded with cdce.
Using u3g.c:U3G_DEV(HUAWEI, K3372_INIT, U3GINIT_HUAWEISCSI)
Causes the modem to appear as a device id 0x1442 . Using this, only NTP port was listening. Maby this is a ntp mode. Using:U3G_DEV(HUAWEI, E3372_INIT, U3GINIT_HUAWEISCSI2)
does not give any results. These are the current possibilities if compiling a new kernel every time is possible.
It would be easier if a device had only one identification code. Reading about the different codes from usb_modeswitch list, it is maby clear that the service provider can change the device ID:s. This is not very easy to the users. If the device was only a modem, it  would be usable without the flip-flop states of the modem-devices. ISO image is given with Windows and Linux drivers or software and after installing the software, the state becomes a modem state. Possibly with a HTTP-interface to connecto to the Internet.
Quick test with Linux shows that the latency time is less with Linux. Previously using PPP with these kind of wireless devices, FreeBSD has shown best latency times. This is an estimate. Using an external modem (propably Linux inside) caused more latency with PPP over the previous 3G link.

With best regards,

Jouni L.