How to: CF30 & Mobile Internet in Australia

I was unable to find anything definitive on this, so I thought a how-to was in order.

Important information: CF30 Mk3 (WWAN ready pocket), Windows 7 Pro 32 bit, and Gobi2000

Recently I spent several weeks in the US on vacation, and while I was there I sourced and upgraded a CF30 with the intention of taking it home with me.

With no definitive answer on what would work re: onboard mobile internet, I browsed the forums and drew the conclusion that a Gobi2000 card was my best bet, with it being a multi carrier unit, theoretically giving me the best spread of options.

Research into connection manager options in Australia led me to believe that neither Telstra nor Optus, the two major carriers support the Gobi card (and Optus dont want to know unless its their hardware, I havent checked with Telstra yet). From there, I found the most popular third party connection manager was "OneClickInternet", supposedly a Sony program, but the copy I found is supposedly from Fujitsu.

WWAN sled and Gobi purchased, I fitted them and tracked down the Panasonic drivers, once I'd established the Gobi was happily recognised in the BIOS and by Windows, I entertained myself by exploring the possibilities of the Gobi's GPS (tip: only do this if you have the time to experiment, otherwise get the UBLOX kit).

*NOTE* CF30 WWAN sled's are fitted with a bank of 4 DIP switches, from what I can find, HSDPA is appropriate for Australian 3G networks, it is possible that EV-DO or UNDP1 *may* work, but mine are set for HSDPA and it appears to work just fine.


Image shamelessly stolen from NBR member db04p71.

Back in Australia, I visited my local Optus store and bought a prepaid SIM, went home, activated it online using a WLAN connection, then opened up OneClickInternet. Trying to connect manually, even when armed with the Service ID (Phone number assigned to the SIM when you activate it) and the IMSI (Unique to each SIM, I needed to harass a Optus tech pointing out that the connection manager told me to get this information from him, finally he told me) I had problems with the connection attempt timing out.

I wondered if changing the firmware might help as it was set for Verizon, selecting "Automatic (UMTS)" only seemed to revert straight back to Verizon, so I started attempting other firmware options and struck lucky with Vodaphone, and as soon as it had loaded the firmware, OneClickInternet restarted and gave me an almost instant connection to the Optus network.

(Telstra is next, I went to Optus first because Telstra are that high up my **** list the only reason I still have anything to do with them is that in my experience they have the *best* mobile phone coverage in Australia, and that is something thats kinda critical to me, even if their customer service sucks enough that I havent done anything about the $10.45 they keep sending me letters every 3-4 weeks telling me they owe me.... for the last 6-7 years.......)

Update: Telstra SIM works on the same Vodaphone firmware selection, but seems to operate on the UMTS protocols whereas Optus operates on HSPA

In short, for a WWAN ready CF30:
Buy and install a WWAN Sled and Gobi2000 card, making sure to select the "HSDPA" DIP switch settings
Download and install the Panasonic Gobi2000 drivers
Download and install OneClickInternet from here:
http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/Index...wareGUID=95221913-F5E4-4469-9EFD-B6294944DD92
Buy and activate an Optus or Telstra mobile internet SIM
Change the OneClickInternet firmware selection to "Vodaphone"
Connect to the internet and have fun!

 

Thanks for the info. If you have links to download the proper version of oneclickinternet that would be helpful. I have used that instead of default connection manager and now I think I understand how it all fits together. Does anyone want a WWAN overview/primer?

 

Original post edited with a link.

What do you mean by WWAN overview/primer?

 

By WWAN primer I meant what is generally possible and how to do it. Not necessarily related to CF-30 or any particular toughbook model. The interface software (Watcher or OneClick) provides access to all the features of the device. The BIOS that can limit what internal cards are allowed to be recognized by the computer. How carrier choice is limited by the device and the software. It's all in here but maybe a newbie might like to understand the basics.

 

sounds like a good thing!

 

Updated again, turned out that swapping to Telstra from Optus was as easy as rebooting with the Telstra SIM inserted, interesting change of protocols from Optus's HSPA to Telstras UMTS, no idea how it affects reception or performance though

 

HSDPA is the only one that's likely to work here in Oz. My now very old Mk2 CF18 does have what I believe to be an ex-Telstra EV-DO modem in it but it does nothing for me. I've used an external e169 (recently upgraded to e1762) USB 3g dongle for wireless internet since 2008 when I first got into toughbooks.

The thing to keep in mind is that US telco's and Oz telco's generally do not always use the same frequency bands for their wireless services, and Oz telcos don't use the same as each other. Those Gobi things might not support any or many bands used by Telco's for 2g/3g/4g wireless broadband here.

I tried some Sierra cards in a few of my toughbooks and never got any of the to function properly with the wireless services through Optus when I used that carrier for many years.