wnas

vodafone umts on leopard

umts

So I finally gave up hope on having internet on the train. Unlike in scandinavia, that will not happen in the netherlands for quite some time. Still I spend more than 2 hours in a train each day, time I want to use to work.

Expresscard.png

So in order to connect to the outside world I went with the solution from Vodafone. A solution which did not, to my surprise, comes with mac support. Yes, still in this day and age, we mac users represent a minority and are very scary. Knowing that I had no support I still took the gamble as I had the right to return everything within 48 hours. Something that gave me the freedom to try and make it work.

My first attempts were not working and even a bit frustrating. I followed the instructions and they only resulted in a blue and a red flashing light, but no connection. A situation which was not that common to me as I expect things to work. I have a mac and truly expect things to work when I plug them in...

So, as I didn't figure it out in time, I turned to the Vodafone helpdesk, fully expected to be confirmed in my bad expectations. What was my surprise, they (or the one guy I talked to Mark B.) actually helped me.

They were very honest about not supporting leopard but still had a few pointers for me. Those turned out to be very helpfull, so I will repeat them here for you in the hope that I can help someone else...

The solution

It turns out that leopard comes with a few drivers that conflict with the vodafone ones. So if you simple erase those and than install the vodafone software, all is well.

So if you want stuff to work, go to systeem/bibliotheek/extensions/IOSerialfamily.kext/contents/plugins/, look for packages like: AppleWWANSupport1.kext, AppleWWANVerizon.kext erase those, restart and install the vodafone stuff you're done.

So to conclude, some helpdesk people actually help you and here is a way to use the vodafone stuff on leopard. I hope that this helps someone...

← Home