Mobile Broadband On Linux To Improve With ModemManager

With NetworkManager 0.7, which can be found in most modern Linux distributions already, there is "out of the box" support for many mobile broadband / cellular cards in this excellent network management utility. Most SM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HDSPA, HSUPA, and EVDO devices can then provide an Internet connection to a Linux host usually with the click of a menu item from the NetworkManager plug-in. However, not all mobile broadband devices play well with Linux right now.

If you are interested in finding out what mobile broadband devices do work well with the current NetworkManager stack, Dan Williams (the lead NetworkManager developer at Red Hat) has written a lengthy blog post that details the support level for various cellular cards. The devices covered include the HUAWEI, Qualcomm Gobi, Modern Sierra, Old-School Sierra, Option "HSO", Ericsson F3507g, and BUSlink SCWi275u.

Dan shares, however, that the current NetworkManager architecture does not allow all mobile broadband devices to be supported. As a result, a new FreeDesktop.org project has been started, which is called ModemManager. ModemManager will interact with NetworkManager in a similar way to how wpa_supplicant works with NetworkManager. Via D-Bus, ModemManager will make it possible to handle data connections, send SMS messages, read/change the phone-book, acquire signal strength, read the GPS signal, and provide other features not possible strictly in a NetworkManager stack. In fact, just yesterday ModemManager picked up the support for sending SMS messages on Linux via a connected mobile phone.