Comment 0 for bug 259028

Binary package hint: network-manager

A lot of USB 3G modems also carry a USB storage device, which contains the Windows drivers. These devices are detected as usb-storage and mounted automatically when plugged in.
In order to be able to use the modem instead, the USB product ID needs to be switched.
There is a tool to do this: http://www.draisberghof.de/usb-modeswitch/

Example (MU-Q101):
The device shows has a vendor ID of 0x0408 and a product ID of 0x1000 when plugged in.
It needs to switch the product ID to 0xea02 to enable the modem.
The following steps need to be done to do this:
1. When first plugged in, the device will be recognized as usb-storage device and automatically mounted. Unmount the device.
2. As root:
2.1. run usb-modeswitch
2.2. tell the kernel that the device product ID has changed:
2.2.1. get the port number where the device is connected by looking into the dmesg output, e.g.: 1-2
2.2.2. send a "suspend" to that device: echo "suspend" > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-2/power/level
2.2.3. the device will wake up again and then carry the correct product ID (confirm with lsusb)
2.3. Load either the option module, or the usbserial module, depending on the device (for MU-Q101 usbserial is necessary): modprobe usbserial vendor=0x0408 product=0xea02
3. Now, 4 ttyUSB devices should have been created: ttyUSB0~3.
3.1. For MU-Q101 only: send the following AT command to /dev/ttyUSB2 (I currently do this manually with minicom): AT+CFUN=1
4. Use ttyUSB0 to connect with ppp.

The affected devices are listed in the attached usb_modeswitch.conf file.