How to get your O2 Mobile Broadband dongle working with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

UPDATE - February 2010: I had written this guide back in 2009 when Snow Leopard shipped, and put it up on my old website. Since then, I've moved host and thought I'd move this along too. I'm not using the dongle anymore, so I don't actually know if the drivers have even been fixed yet, but in any case, this guide will still work. Hope it helps!

September 2009

So heres the deal. With all new operating systems, theres always a certain degree of driver issues out of the box. I had it with Windows XP, Windows Vista (the worst offender) and even OS X 10.5 Leopard. Usually its just a matter of time before the new drivers become available, then they can be easily downloaded and your back in business again. But what if the missing driver means you cannot get online in the first place to download said driver? Ah.



Well it happened to me recently when I upgraded to Snow Leopard. At the moment, I only have Mobile Broadband, (My new ADSL provider gets connected in the next couple of weeks) so I need the dongle provided with it and its drivers to work without fail. My O2 Mobile Broadband dongle worked fine with Leopard and Windows, but crashed when fired up in Snow Leopard.

So after much trolling using my Windows PC, I managed to find a solution and get the Mac back online again.
The solution basically bypasses the Mobile Connect software thats bundled with the dongle and gets it running via Network Preferences..

This will work with any 3G network your on, and works well with most of the HUAWEI dongles -E220/E270/E272/E169G/E160/E180

1) Firstly remove the Mobile Connect program that came with the dongle and then unplug it. Download a new set of drivers from here. Unzip, and install. Simples.

2) Wack the dongle back into your Mac, and wait for the green lights to stop flashing.

3) Next, open up Network Preferences and click the “+" sign in the bottom left to add a new service.
After that, select HUAWEI Mobile from the list on the left and then name your service.

4) Now setup your service by entering a telephone number of *99#, and fill in the account settings as follows: Account Name - o2bb, Password - password. Then, from the Configuration drop down menu, select Mobile Broadband. After that, hit Advanced.

 5) In the Advanced window, select Generic as the vendor then GPRS (GSM/3G) as the model. Enter APN as m-bb.o2.co.uk. If your not using O2, you can enter your own provider's APN, but leave the Account name and Password blank. Leave CID as 1.

6) Click Apply and then hit the Connect button back in Network Preferences, and you should see this:

 

And thats it! Hopefully your connected. Below are some APN's for providers in the UK. Google Mobile Broadband APN's for international ones.

• O2 - m-bb.o2.co.uk (Account Name: 02bb Password: password)
• UK 3 – three.co.uk
• UK t-mobile – general.t-mobile.uk
• Vodafone UK: APN: internet, userid/password: web, web on CHAP
• Vodafone UK prepaid: APN: pp.internet, userid/password: web, web on CHAP
• Vodafone UK pay-as-you go and topup: APN: pp.internet, userid/password: web, web on CHAP