Novatel V620 under Mac OS 10.4.1 -- works but no menu joy

Chris Ryland · EVDO Newbie Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 3

I followed the very helpful tips at EVDOInfo.com for getting the Novatel V620 to work under Mac OS 10.4.1 (Tiger, latest update), and it does work. (Thanks, everyone who pioneered this!)

I'm pretty sure I followed the directions exactly (and I'm an old Unix hacker from about 30 years ago, and an Apple developer for 15 years, so it all makes perfect sense), but the menu doesn't reflect real support for the modem.

All I see is the Unknown Vendor PC card menu item, followed by the broken-antenna Verizon menu, with everything on the first line grayed out.

When I use Connect and Disconnect, it all works fine. I'm even seeing around 600-700KB downlink out here in the woods of Westbrook, Connecticut, too far out for DSL or cable.

But it just doesn't appear to be fully configured/PC card aware.

Is that true for everyone else who's using one of these cards under OS X 10.4 (Tiger)?

Thanks.
_________________
Cheers!
--Chris Ryland, Em Software, Inc.
cpr@emsoftware.com

Michael · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject:

After doing the changes noted on EVDOinfo.com , the Novatel V620 WILL work, with the following limitations:

- no signal bars indicator
- no EVDO or 1XRTT indicator
- no option to activate the card (Downloads new PRLs)

However, IT DOES WORK and allow your Mac 10.3.5 - 10.4.1 to connect to BroadbandAccess, just kind of blindly. You will see that you are connected, you won't know if you are in nationalaccess or broadbandaccess and you will not know how strong the signal is.

BTW, we are working with a developer to create a Tiger Widget that would show you signal strength and EVDO vs. 1XRTT indicator. MORE on this next week.
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Michael · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 12:44 pm Post subject:

Currently, if you want to see this on your PowerBook:

You need to get a PC5220 card (which are in short supply).
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Chris Ryland · EVDO Newbie Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 3

Yes, thanks. All the joy in the other forum didn't make that clear--I thought it worked perfectly like the 5520.

I'm happy as a clam, however.

Look forward to other improvements. Maybe Apple will support these other variants out of the box someday (at least in Tiger).

(And, right now I'm mostly using the V620 on my Thinkpad in Internet Connection Sharing mode, which gets the gateway function for my house off the Mac, and lets me share my Airport base station (hardwired to the Thinkpad) printer with the other Macs in the house, etc. So I don't have to deal with it on a daily basis.)

The V620 support under Windows ain't perfect, either. At least when in Internet Connection Sharing mode (set up with the wizard under XP), the control panel doesn't accurately reflect what's going on with the PC card. (In fact, you can quit the control panel, once it's turned on, and the system keeps the connection going. Odd.)
_________________
Cheers!
--Chris Ryland, Em Software, Inc.
cpr@emsoftware.com

Michael · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:27 pm Post subject:

See this thread for some cool new Mac OS X Novatel v620 Developments:

http://www.evdoforums.com/about421.html
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