Posts Tagged ‘GSM’

How to configure VIVACOM 3g USB ( internet ) modem HUAWEI Mobile broadband E173 on Debian and Ubuntu GNU / Linux

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

sakis3g-configure-usb-modem-kdialog-shot

I've been given a HUAWEI Mobile Broadband E173 USB 3g model. The USB modem contains a flash USB Storage segment storing a little install program dedicated to make the modem work fine on Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7 and probably other M$ OSes. I'm a long time DebianGNU / Linux user and as a free software enthusiast I ofcourse wanted to be able to use Vivacom's 3G USB Modem on my Linux powered notebook.

Thanksfully as I've red on Vivacom's website the modem supports Linux OS 🙂

For those unaware in Bulgaria there are currently 3 major GSM network providers providing 3G internet this are;;;
 

  • VIVACOM – The ex Government ran national company BTC (Bulgarian Telecommunication Company)
  • M-Tel – The first GSM network provider that entered Bulgaria around year 1995
  • GLOBUL – The 3rd and last GSM mobile and net provider entered last and not so much used by Bulgarians today

Until today I had no experience in running any 3G modems on Linux, neither I had used the 3 networks 3G internet to determine which one is best, however I've been given for temporal use a VIVACOM 3G internet modem today so I proceeded to try installing it on my Debian host.

My Linux system is a bit strangely configured as I use wicd network connection manager -( wicd-gtk ) to manage wireless and LAN connections instead of the standard installed GNOME network manager – available through package ( network-manager-gnome ).

The reason I use wicd is not that it is so much better than GNOME network manger but rather for historical reasons because few years past I had impression it works better in connecting me to wireless networks. Another reason why I choosed wicd back then was the nice looking stats …

I tried plugging in the Vivacom USB 3G modem stick and checked in wicd to see if I can see a possibility to connect to the mobile opeartor 3G network but unfortunately nothing appeared.

Though the 3G adsl modem was unavailable straing in wicd, checking about it in the list of attached USB devices I could see it detected, e.g.:

noah:~# lsusb |grep -i huawei
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 12d1:1c05 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

This was at least a good sign pointing me to the thoughts that the modem is probably gonna work.

I did a quick Google search to see if other people succeded running the device on a Linux host and came across a few blog posts in Bulgarian explaining a "success story" on Ubuntu Linux through using a tweakened shell script – sakis3g. For more on how the script works and script download check out Sakis3g

Here is a quote from sakis3g's website describing the script:
 

It automagically setups your USB or Bluetooth™ modem, and may even detect operator settings.
You should try it when anything else fails!

Sakis3g has different versions designed for for plenty of spacific hware architectures i.e. for (i386, amd64, armv4t, armv5t).
There is also a version of the script which by the way contains a combination of bash shell scripting instruction and some binary exec data.

To run sakis3g on my laptop I did:

1. Download sakis3g

My notebook architecture is 64 bit so I download and used the amd64 version of the script;;;

hipo@noah:~$ mkdir sakis3g
hipo@noah:~$ cd sakis3g
hipo@noah:~/sakis3g$ wget http://www.sakis3g.org/versions/latest/amd64/sakis3g.gz

I've made also a mirror of sakis3g i386, 64 bit and all architecture the mirrors just in case it disappears in future. The mirror versions of sakis3g are here:

a. sakis3g i386 b. sakis3g amd64 c. sakis3g all architectures source

2. Unarchive and make it executable

After downloading it as it is in gzip I had to do the usual de-gzipping and making the file executable;;;

hipo@noah:~/sakis3g$ /bin/gzip -d sakis3g.gz
hipo@noah:~/sakis3g$ chmod +x sakis3g

The script is then ready to run by either clicking twice on it or (as I prefer for debugging reasons to run it in terminal):

hipo@noah:~$ ./sakis3g

Something that I have wondered a bit was the dialog where I had to fill in some data of some variable APN abbreviation for – (Access Point Name)

The APN host for VIVACOM mobile internet is;;;
APN: internet.vivacom.bg

I've used the Windows configuration progrma to gather also the following data that I thought might be important for configuring the 3G adsl modem on the Linux host;;;

Auth: *99#
User: VIVACOM
pass: VIVACOM

Here are all the configuration screenshots I've taken from sakis3g and all the data that I filled in.
Next the following tiny window appeared on screen:

Sakis3g configure usb modem kdialog shot 1 VIVACOM USB Modem Sakis 3g Shot 2 sakis 3g usb modem vivacom connect screenshot 2 vivacom 3g modem linux sakis3g enter pin dialog shot 4 Sending pin screenshot 5 sakis3g APN Dialog sakis3g screenshot 6sakis3g Internet Linux VIVACOM screenshot 7sakis3g Debian GNU Linux VIVACOM 3g Internet screenshot 8sakis3g initializing modem screenshot 9sakis3g successful connect to VIVACOM mobile 3g usb adls modem shot 10

Well that's all folks, now sakis3g succesfully connected to the I_net via an (PPP) VPN connection tunnel here is data from ifconfig command showing the succesful 3G connection to VIVACOM;;;

noah:~# /sbin/ifconfig ppp0
ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:10.58.146.232 P-t-P:10.64.64.64 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2066 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1609 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:2232058 (2.1 MiB) TX bytes:341693 (333.6 KiB)

The internet via the 3G connection is not blazing fast but good enough to check your mail or read some webpages. VIVACOM currently has different (traffic limited packages) for their 3G internet, I'm not sure which package exactly is the 3G USB stick modem but probably the "quick" internet connection that is now would slow down once the traffic limit is reached …
Hope this post helps someone to configure 3G internet on VIVACOM in Debian and Ubuntu Linux. Though I've tested sakis3g on Debian it should work with no hassles on any other GNU Linux distribution that has bash installed.

Richard Stallman explaining Why IPads and Cell Phones are bad for freedom

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

It is a public secret that Mobile Phones which does us very good and generally makes our daily lifes way easier are also a big enemy to our natural ihnibited freedom. Life has become such that it is almost inevitable to do any business or do a daily simple jobs without using Mobile Phone. There is almost none practically today that has wilfully rejected to use the mobile phone on any basis, almost anyone except some strangers like Richard Stallman and probably few others security freaks.

I've been shocked to find out the Father of Free Software (Richard Mathew Stallman), well known in the hacker dome as RMS does not own and didn't use any mobiles. The concerns he pointed are very much logical and rightful. Owning a mobile is a great security hole in personal privacy (mobile phones can be easily sniffed by Mobile Operators) as well as anyone wearing a mobile can be tracked up to 5 to 2 meters to the exact location where he is based on the mobile phone cells to which the mobile is connected.

Many people are not aware actually of the severeness of the issue of constant tracking of people everywhere through this call "goodies". Many mobile operators are already running a software which is building place behaviour patterns of every user of their mobile network. In other words, as we're used to bring and use the mobile everywhere in automated program is creating a map for each number assigned in some of the mobile operators. The gathered data about our location going habits can then be easily used as a indicator for predicting our future behaviour, bying habits (how many times we go to super-market), how many times we go to cinema, what kind of interests we hold etc. etc.
This combined with Google, account monitoring could possibly create a system similar to the old movies Big Brother, where all people goods and even attitudes or desires is monitored, influenced and controlled ….

The severeness of the future implications of this constant "personal surveillance and tracking device" as Stallman use to call it is very dangerous for our freedoms.

I tried to live without a mobile phone, just like Stallman for about months, and to tell you the truth the world around seems completely different when you decide not to use 'em. The time I lived wihtout a mobile, clearly show me we have come to the point we cannot any more live without GSM. We fall the trap of dependanding the little "talk box" communication for absolutely everything, obviously sacrificing privacy and freedom for convenience.
Mobiles are just one side of the coin, as the non-free software which is ruling the software market and the use of computers puts another treat and takes away many foundamential freedoms we used to have in the less technological world.

Apple as a vendor of software and hardware also denies and breaks our freedom very badly, as the company tracks everyone who owns anything created by apple connected to the internet. Besides that non-free software producers, could change the user software with a press of a button giving them the opportunity to decide what is good and bad for us, leaving us at a state of a helpless dependable users.

The topic of technological little-by-little enslavement, we're going through nowdays and the denying freedoms, we experience while being convinced by companies that we became more free by each next mambo-jambo gadget or by owning the latest smart-phone is very huge and complex but unfortunately underseen in society. I don't understand why, is it due to the low technical skills of mass users is it due to a "not-care what will happen in future" attitude, but obviously people openly discussing or protesting the technologization taking away our freedom is almost zero ….

Here is the video I found in youtube in which Stallman is asked few, questions on Ipads (IBADS) and Mobile Phone use. I believe his short explanation synthesizes the problem quite well ;;;;

I just wonder after you check the video, Would you still accept an Ipad as a birthday gift ? 🙂
Do you still think cell-phones are "good" freedom safe and reliable ?

Three Ways to Reduce Addiction to Mobile Phone ( GSM ) use

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Mobile Phone Caricature Reduce Mobile Addiction / 3 ways to reduce mobile phone addiction / Use your Mobile less

1.: Don't use a ring tone or use a short landline phone ringtone on incoming calls

In the past, we all had a local stand line phones, most of the landline phones rung using a very specific ring sound which was almost identical on all phones around the world. This ringing tone used was following some telephone standards. The result was everyone could distinguish a ringing phone in a room or closed space and tell for sure, this sound is generated by a phone. Nowdays with the boom of cellular phone ringtones, there is almost noone who uses a standard old-fashioned telephone ringtone as a ring melody.

The consequence of this is in our minds we start loosing the boundary between whether communicating on the phone or communicating without it.
In younger people this boundary between phone line and a physical communication is more evident than in adults (as youngsters has grown in society where mobile was used everywhere). The implication of this is more and more people are starting to perceive mobile communication as so natural as the person to person communication. Spending big part of the day talking over the phone mostly senseless things, not being consciously aware that this is done due to a heavy phone addiction and repeating behaviour trait stored sub-consciously.

Today everyone chooses a custom mobile phone ringtone melody (popular or impopular) song and sets it up to be a standard incoming call signal. As you can guess there are consequences on the mind, as the ringtone set is heard ten times or more a day during each and every phone call. The result is just like with alcoholics or drug addicts, the more you take from a certain "good" the more attached you become to it. Hence the more we listen to a certain song chunk daily on incoming calls, the sub-conscious becomes dependent on hearing this sound at least a number of times daily. If a day passes without no-one calling us and we don't hear the ringtone indicating a call the sub-conscious stored dependency starts popping up and we could start feeling lonely and we feel like calling someone (and we often do). Obviously this is dependency and even if someone might argue me this is a severe addiction which as every other addiction could be very dangerous and hard to fight.

As I prior said due to the fact that the phone use dependency is built in our minds starting with the phone ring melody, we can reduce this dependency by switching off the phone ringtone completely or at least changing it to a unique beep which is not likely to be heard or seen somewhere in your surrounding environment.

By setting the ringtone to some popular song we see on (TV, Radio or Internet on daily basis) this might become a trigger for us to associate hearing this sound with talking on the phone and hence make you increase the time you spend on the phone ,,, so be careful ,,,,

2.:: Stop Mobile Beeps and sounds on menu navigation

All new mobiles sold on the market are configured to have buzzling sounds on events and various beeps on keypad lock / unlock and menu navigation.
This sounds are there mostly to make you more alert and concentrated on using your mobile and often as a consequence whether one uses his mobile his awareness is comletely taken by the phone screen (you're totally "absorbed" by the phone use).
Besides designed to alert you the Managers and CEO's who decided to have a heavy beep sounds on mobiles made it having probably something else on mind? The beeps on keypad navigation makes the user emotionally and sub-consciously attached to the Cell Phone. The idea here is like in popular music streamed on radios and TVs and mostly everywhere …. The more you listen to a song, the higher the mind trait it leaves in you, so later when one hears a music pattern or a whole song, which he / she listened already thousands of times this brings back "good" old memories. It is very simple actually our minds are constructed in a way that the mor certain "information" is heard / saw / smell the bigger the mind influence this leaves on us. Back to the mobile sounds, the more you use the mobile phone with turned on sounds, the more addicted and mind stucked the beep and melodies during use of the cell phone becomes in the mind. For example many people take a look at their mobile automatically (without being consciously aware) and do the activity of (unlock) and (lock) the phone screen not knowing they do it automatic. More or less we all do such an auto-mated learned behaviour because of the subconscious dependency that is built in our minds. Whether we lock and unlock the mobile phone almost robotically, we do it because our sub-conscious mind plays a trick on us and "force" us to do a previous learned activity (association in our mind with the unlock / lock beep sound).

3.::: Use your mobile in different ways

Any modern mobile is quite advanced in functionality and there is more than one way to initiate a phone call. E.g. the mobile has a shortcut buttons assigned to do quick phone calls, quickly evoke SMS menu etc.
Learn them and occasionally use the shortcut buttons instead of the menu navigation. Our minds like changing patterns and doing things different.

Even if you have no chance to do a things via a certain menu, you can always change the position of the phone screen to different distance to eyesight 🙂 You can for example type on the keypad following the menu steps by watching from left or right eye periphery or you can use the menus with your phone screen turned backwards 🙂 If you're used to type on the keypad or touch screen with right hand try doing it with the left hand 🙂

This will take time but the fun worths it. Plus the most valuable thing in using the mobile in different ways each time is there is no specific inflicting pattern associated in your mind and hence the depepdency set in your sub-conscious mind on phone use is lesser.
Actually there are too many various "hacks" one could come up with on how to use mobile as differently as possible. It is up to your imagination. Though using the mobile "each-time-different" can be sometimes more time-consuming it surely makes your phone use amusing.

Negative impact of Cell Phones (GSM) use on individual and society

Monday, June 25th, 2012

Negative impact of Cell Phones GSM on individual and society

We all live in an age, where cell-phone communication has become a standard part of our daily lives. As with everything new adopted in basic human life. GSM tool inclusion in our life had a severe impact on both individuals and in summary to whole society groups and nations.

The benefits out of having an instant “channel” for communication to anyone else in the world are indoubtfully numerous. However as present tosicety is learned to mostly thing in one direction, most people didn’t have a clear understanding on the negative impact of this little communicators on our mind body and soul.

1.; Negative impact of mobile phones on body level

Whenever we talk over the phone especially when picking up incoming calls or initiating out-going ones, the GSM device has to connect to the closest network cell “dial up” and wait for initialization of remote or local connection. The levels of radiation waves during the two mobiles connects up is higher. Therefore if one moves the phone near his ear listening for the status of call the amount of radiation that enters our brains is slightly higher. The extra-radiation whether mobiles are connecting is also few times more whether our phone is ringning, hence it is unhealthy to put the phone near our ear before we press the Answer Call button.

2.;; Negative effect of continuous mobile phones use on human brain

Knowing about the increased radiation on connection initialization thanksfully one can protect himself by simply not putting the mobile headset near ear on call initialization. Though this “problem” can be partially solved, next comes the health brain damage (tumours) which according to some researches are higher among people who do frequentlong phone call conversations. In long phone calls the brain is exposed for a longer time to the flowing waves making the peer to peer call possible. According to some medical researches, a long and frequent phone calls could be a reason not only for brain cancers but also other misfunctions or damages in normal brain cells functioning.

3.;;; The bad impact of Cell Phones on nervous system

Another health issue which the daily phone use and the constant exposure to mobile network cells radio frequency radiation affects generally our nervous system.

Unexpected phone calls early in morning or late at night are a cause for increased bodily stress and even the fear sometimes for an incoming phone call are a cause for many types of neurological disorders diagnosed by psychiatrists.
Even when we sleep at night the mobile phone periodically connects to the nearest mobile cell generating some almost undetectable “waves contamination”. This constant waves air flow caused by the mobile network cells positioned all around cities is not usual thing for our bodies. This also has some influence on our nervous system as the nervous sysm tends to be a bit more alert because of the waves constantly passing the body. The natural reaction of our bodies nerves is to try to balance itself. As nervous system of different people is not equal some people’s nervous system is more prone to having difficulties to balance the disbalance created by the increased number of mobile air waves.
The result of this to many people is in increased sleeplessnes and hardships to get asleep (according to research taken place in American Academy of Sleep Medicine.).

4.;;;; Lost of social and ethical behaviour in people

There is lately observed a huge shift from a face to face communication to peer to peer (p2p) on the phone. The cellphones breeds a culture of socially group detached people (the communication over phone is rarely a conference) but rather consists of communication between two persons (peer to peer). The p2p communication is not only a primary mean of communication of people exposed to heavy phone use. p2p Communication is a primary communication in Skype, Google Talk and mostly all modern available communication medias and softwares.

As more and more people spend nowdays more time on the mobile than in real communication, this makes them introverted and isolated and increases the inability to deal with real human f2f interaction. In other words continuous phone use re-trains us to communicate with others via the mobile. Besides that according to numerous researches about 40 to 50% of visual communication whether a phone call is used is lost (this also makes negotiation or expressing over phone harder and at least twice longer than in real communication).

The influence of the decreased social abilities cause of the phone use has also an impact on ethical behaviour of people too. The increased lost of communication abilities makes even daily real communication vague and lacking accepted social norms and ethical values. Next to that comes the huge problem of over-simplification of communication. As the line communication over the phone loose half of the communication as well as sometimes there are quality of voice over the network interferences. People are doing their best to simplify the communication adopting short command like like phrases and talking in a slang.

5.;;;;; Addiction to mobile phone use

The use of mobile phone often has a short beep sounds, whether you work on the keyboard receive a phone call or look for some mobile functionality staring at the screen. We’re wearing the mobile everywhere with us so often we do check the mobile screen quite un-consciously (by addiction). Checking the mobile screen to see what time is it has become almost an instinct and an automated learned behaviour.

The continous use of mobile phones makes many people mobile addicts. There are huge amount of people I’ve observed who speaks everyday for few hours (whether everytime they feel lonely they call someone in order not to feel lonely). The mobile phone addiction in youngsters is slighly higher than in adults. Probably the most mobile dependent addicts are kids who were given a mobile to use since there very early years.
Anyways there are tons of adults nowdays who cannot even think to be able to live without mobile and even cannot understand: how can anyone think that life could be possible without a cell phone. This kind of thinking is a direct trait showing an addiction and dependency on the phone such people have.

SWITCH OFF your Mobile Phone and TV at night to save energy!!!

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONE AT NIGHT to SAVE ENERGY and MONEY

We’re constantly being said to reduce energy consupmtion, they sell us new bulbs to save energy, new TVs with energy saving. The newer the computer equipment microwaves or whatever home electrical equipment we buy the more it is said to be saving energy.

So far so good it is true we can reduce energy consumption by producing gadgets which consume less. However there are also another approach to the “green problem” which we never are said about.

It is rather simply instead of saving energy on technology base, we can save energy on physical base. One simple thing to do to save energy with no need to spend money on latest advacement gadgets is to simply make it the old school way.

a -= Learn to switch off your lamps and home equipment whenever its not necessery

If you’re about to go to sleep, you can simply switch off the mobile and use a mechanical clock to wake you up on the morning, this way you have 3 benefits.

1; Less energy will be discharged by the mobile in the time you’re not awake, so you don’t need to charge so frequently the battery and therefore you will draw less energy from the Electrical network hence saving energy.

2; You will not be radiated with a bit less radiation produced by the Mobile phone in order to stay connected to the GSM local located cell.

Though the good this does will not be dramatical it for sure will be better for your health than if the mobile is switched on the whole night.

3; You will not be awakened in morning by some crazy person who just decided to call you early in the morning.
Often this morning unexpected and desired phone calls make you jump off the bed rapidly and hence giving a large dose of stress to your organizm.

-=- Of course switching off the mobile has some disadvantages if you can receive a crucial phone calls during all time of day or night you can’t afford to simply switch off the mobile, this is however not true for most people who work in an OFF-ICE.People working in offices can simply wake up at a scheduled time, get a shower do their morning hygiene and jump to a car or bus to the office so the need for having the mobile switched ON at night is not really needed.

Of course thinking in the same direction, it is logical that switching off the computer earlier when not needed, the wireless home router or the TV is another place from where a huge energy savings can be achieved.

If large amount of people re-learn their energy in-efficient habits to be more energy cautios a HUGE amounts of energy can be saved. This of course can have a positive impact on the monthly energy bills and hence can save you money in monthly expenses.

The TV is surely another big energy draining source, many people have the habit to sleep with a Television switched on. Besides this has a negative impact on the conscious since vast amounts of information are being stored and processed by the conscious and unconscious mind, also the lights emitted from the TV screen prevents the persons body to not have a pieceful rest.

Its rather stupid that companies are constantly ranting on how they improve their products to be energy friendly but they don’t invest even a penny to educate the masses that energy saving does not only depend on how good the technology is produced to save energy but also on how much the people are educated how to use the technology with energy saving in mind.Probably there are plenty of other ways a households can change their habits to save energy. I’ll be glad to hear some other suggestions ,,,

Thanks to God I’m in Arnhem the Netherlands! :)

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

I had 3 days trip with bus with my girl classmate (Ina). We traveled using the union-ivkoni bus lines. As a wholebeing on the road with bus for 3 days in order to reach some destination is pretty killing. We started the historicaltravel from Kavarna to Sofia and then at 2 o’clock we catched the bus Sofia -> Utrecht. There was big delays in the Serbianand the Hungarian borders. On all the other boarders we and our luggage weren’t checked. We had a bunch of stops on a oil stations.And I have to note everything in the oil stations in europe is pretty expensive. For example one sanwdich costs somwehere aroundalmost 4EU!. I and Ina came at Utrecht at around 6 o’clock and went to the Utrecht’s train station where we took two tickets to Arnhem.At 7 we were at Arnhem and went to the bus station. Originally we expected that there are gonna be welcoming students there and HAN university buses traveling from there to Vivare and the other accommodation places, unfortunately this was not the case. We were absolutely alone at an unknown country again I prayed to God in Jesus name to help me find a way to fix this mess. I went to search for Mobile SIM card, at the end after 20 minutes of walk I asked a police officer near the train station and he told me about a bookstore where I can find mobile SIM cards. I took two of them one for Ina and one for me. I took the T-Mobile mobile. I heard that the prices of conversations between the Bulgarian GSM operator Globul and T-Mobile are cheaper so I decided to give it a try. We called Koko (A College Colleague, who is gonna study HRQM just like me and is going to continue as a 3rd year student in Arnhem Business School, he came instantly in 20 minutes or so with another Bulgarian guy who already studied a year in Arnhem (Drago). Drago didn’t helped much with the traveling bags. But Kaloyan helped a lot. Today I feel the grace of God so real. I pray that he keep me and guide me in the same way in the future too. Another thing to note is that the living room that Vivare selected for me or should I say God make it be for me is just perfect. It has a toilet (!big plus!, a terrace, аsink, a nice bed, A Buro, a lamp and a chair. The room number is with ID K. 111. I think 111 stays for the Holy Trinity (The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit) to Whom is and be the Glory the worship and power now and Forever and Ever, Amen!) I forgot to mention that I blocked my mobile telephone while trying to make the T-mobile SIM card work with my Motorola C115, luckily God has thought for this too. It seems Koko has one Mobile apartus he didn’t need right now so he gave it on a good will to me. Again what I can say Our Lord is an awesome God. Now I’m pretty tired and I’m going to bed. I have to mention Arnhem is excitingly charmful city and I really like it, also I’m impressed by the Dutch guys with which I had any work until now.Well for final I can only say: ” I screamed to the Lord and he heard my prayer and delivered me from evil”! Glory to you Lord of Hosts! Amen !END—–