Making BSNL EVDO work in Ubuntu

A friend of mine recently told me that she is not using Linux because she can't configure her BSNL EV-DO in her Linux Machine.

See how I resolved the issue (She is using an Ubuntu Machine, so it is obvious that this tutorial is indented for those users with Ubuntu 8.04 or more).

So how do we do it ?

Plug the EV-DO to your USB port and then open your terminal (for those who don't know who to open a terminal, press alt+f2 and type gnome-terminal and press enter).

Type this sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

and you will see something like this in the terminal, if the modem is properly detected.

Sep 20 19:28:14 xxxxxxxxxxx-1510 kernel: [ 2821.869615] option 3-2:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
Sep 20 19:28:14 xxxxxxxxxxx-1510 kernel: [ 2821.870366] usb 3-2: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0

In this case the modem device is attached to ttyUSB0. Once you are done with it, you need to fill up the wvdial.conf file.

Spoiler Warning : sometimes you may not find wvdial.conf in your machine, don't worry you can install it using sudo apt-get install wvdialconf. Now you will be able to find the wvdial.conf in your /etc directory

Please save the below lines to your wvdial.conf file.

[Dialer Defaults]

Modem=/dev/ttyUSB0
Baud=115200
Dial Command = ATDT
Baud=115200
Dial Command = ATDT
init1=ATZ
init2=AT+CRM=1
Flow Control= Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Username =
Password =
Phone = #777
Stupid Mode = 1

Folks, if you don't know how to access the wvdial.conf, it is located in the /etc folder. You can open the terminal and type sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf and save the configurations in the file.

Now we are almost done with the configuration part.

To kick-start your Internet go to terminal and type sudo wvdial and stay connected always :)