3G / UMTS information for the beasties
I've compiled this area for using 3G (UMTS) capable hardware (PCMCIA cards) under the family of free operating systems.
As currently only _one_ :( 3G hardware manufacturer is doing active support for free operating systems, it's hard to get information. There's much need for 1) documentation, 2) documentation, 3) docu... and 4) hardware. If you're able to donate hardware or send pieces of information (or a whole bunch of documentation) please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm trying best to spread information to other projects and developers. If you're using or at least having a device not listed here, please also drop me a note and provide me with the correct model name and as much technical information as you can grab from your system.
What's 3G all about?
The 3rd Generation (mobile wireless) network(s) can be seen as 'internet to go'. Imagine you're on the road, somewhere in the city or even remote, don't have a WLAN AP around and no wall plug to plug you (gee, your notebook) in but having a small PCMCIA card in your notebook and accessing the internet from everywhere with a connection speed of 384 kBit/s - then you know what 3G is all about. With the latest development called HSDPA the connection speed will be as fast as 7.2 mbit/s (1.8 mbit/s is currently being deployed).
When talking about UMTS, we mostly are talking about UTRAN. UMTS means: Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, where UTRAN means "UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network" as UMTS itself may also be driven by a satelite system but UTRAN is driven by terrestrial base stations. There's also some good basic information about UMTS on Wikipedia.
No 3G signal there? Well, then you will fall back to GPRS mode using 56 kbit/s (not that fast, but basically reasonable for most basic work.
It is expected that 3G networks (actually 3.5G) will be as fast as 14 mbit/s. A connection speed of up to 50 or 100 mbit/s should be possible but that's a future story.
So ok, now you got the idea of 3G networks - now up to real life. All manufacturers are supporting Windows systems, a few are supporting Mac-OS. Currently only one does support for GNU/Linux but there's absolutely no support for other OSes. To change that situation, I've started this 3G area. If you're lucky enough to live in a 3G reception area and having a 3G contract but unluckily you're a user of a free operating system, you're not lucky at all. The mobile network operator will (most probably) tell you, you will not get access to their network using a no(n)-Win OS. But that's not really true. A free operating system is as good as any other OS in accessing a 3G wireless network. But (mostly) sometimes you need to put your hands on the OS and configure everything yourself as nothing is there to have you using anything out of the box.
Out of the box support of the BSDs for UMTS would be a feature of 'world' release 2. As we're still living in 'world' release 1, we have to fix everything ourself. Let's go ahead! :)
some informative sites for the UMTS world:
If you're looking for GPRS/UMTS infos for OpenBSD, you may find some at Felix' site