Recognition of newly inserted mobile broadband dongle is far from evident

[Mat Tomaszewski]

network-manager 0.8-0ubuntu2, Ubuntu 10.04

- When a 3G dongle is inserted for the first time, there's no indication that it has been recognised and the setup is available. Option in the N-M-applet menu is very hard to discover and the users are not guided towards it.

Solution:

- When a new 3G dongle is inserted, the 3G setup should pop up automatically.

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Networking#cellular-setup-prompted>: "If, while you are logged in, you connect a cellular device to a PC, a 'Cellular Connection' dialog should appear. If you disconnect the device, the dialog should close automatically."

[Mat Tomaszewski (mat.t.)]

This bug may cause less experienced users to think that Ubuntu does not support mobile broadband. It is a severe user experience issue and needs to be addressed for Lucid. Marking as high-priority.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

I'm not sure whether this really should be set to High or not, but I agree there is a slight usability issue. Marking as Triaged for now; for Maverick+1 we could look at how much work it is to present the wizard, if it helps usability, or if there are other options (such as showing a new device that needs config in indicator maybe?)

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

If we can agree to the specific behavior to present; showing the dialog when an unknown device is added (e.g. when there is no connection existing for mobile broadband), or if a notification should be sufficient, it should be fairly easy to implement.

The implementation detail I'm worried about is mostly how to differentiate between a device that needs the use of the setup wizard, as opposed to how to educate users about existing connections and how to change them or create new connections. Old connections with a "new" dongle (e.g. from a different provider) won't work and would be just as difficult to dicover.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Specification updates. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Networking?action=diff&rev2=143&rev1=142>