Hi all

Finally I made the complete 1st version for the Linux Driver for our CCU680…

Just download the attacment , unzip it in $HOME and read the README.txt File

GOOD LUCK!!

MaxPhuket

answer4it.net/wp-content/uploads/U680.zip

Wonderful piece of hardware.

Several capabilites, such as support for the "N" standard of networking.

Here is a speedtest:

This is on an unboosted signal, but close enough to my point of connection to register as a -51dB signal and 100% signal strength.

Please note that this is the strongest speed test of the day.

The usual range where i am located is from 1200 to 2000 kbps.

This is the Linux driver for Ubuntu, so far it is known to work on 7.x versions and 8.x versions.

 answer4it.net/wp-content/uploads/Linux_Ubuntu.zip

In order to run you probably need to include a route command after connection.

route add -net 0.0.0.0 netmask 0.0.0.0 dev ppp0

Should probably take care of that.

there might be scripts added here later.

This driver was sent upon request from C-motech,
the information inside explained that this was for ubuntu version 7.x
But we tried it, and it also worked on 8.x.

I friend of mine just obtained the CCU-680 from CAT telecom of Thailand.

CCU-680 delivers rev. A of the CDMA2000 EVDO technology.

After a couple of hours of testing with various equipment we must say that we consider this a considerable improvement compared to previous hardware and technologies available to me, that being the CCU-650 and Sierra Aircard 580.

1. Latency is down, pinging with frames of 1500 bytes only produces a latency of about 100-200 milliseconds to my first point of connection, before this number was around 1000-1500 ms.

2. Upload is considerably better, we are at times almost pusing half a megabit of upload.

3. Download is slightly faster.

4. The entire control of the connection seems to have improved, even when surfing or downloading it does not raise my latency times with any considerable amount when pinging my first point of connection.

This is most likely largely because of the faster upload. Since then TCP control frames have more bandwidth in the upstream connecting, making the connections not having to retransmit alot of data becase control frames getting lost in the stream due to congestion.

The Y-Cable was needed to get this good connection, we only had half the download and upload speeds when the Y-cable were not in use.

Also when using the Y-cable with any kind of laptop is the fact that you might need to connect to two USB ports at opposite side of the board, if the USB ports are too close they might be sharing power from the same hub.

Cadcomm is delivering 3G in Cambodia.

For now they are delivering the WCDMA based HSDPA technology on the 2100mhz band.

HSDPA delivers broadband download, and basic upload speeds.

Sometime later they plan on delivering HSUPA wich will provide users with true broadband speed upload, aswell as faster downloads.

Here is the link for more information: 3G Cambodia

This also means that if you have a 3G capable Iphone (current release as of writing.) which is not locked down to a specific telecom provider you could use it in Cambodia.

Though in 2006 the Cambodian Prime minister and his wife supposedly wanted to ban 3G, because of morality and pornography concerns, i guess they have changed their minds since that time.

More on this here: Cambodia to ban 3G

The above article might not be 100% correct, the 3G service has now been launced, but there are limitations to video services.

This is something that will be next to impossible for them to control and stop anyways.
But when it comes to pleasing their wives i guess its the thought that counts for the said Ministers and their wives behind this.

Someone informed me that the better speeds of CDMA2000-EVDO rev. A will be provided by a firmware upgrade to the CCU-650 USB modem, and not by the CCU-680 as believed before. I have not heard anymore information from that side.

(Update: There is a post from C-motech on this blog, it states that the ccu-650 is indeed not upgradeable to rev a through a firmware upgrade.)

However the CCU-680 is now available from CAT telecom. Thank you Matt for providing me with this information: matthewfong.com Some valuable information from a subscriber of CAT telecom further down in the comments:

The CCU-680 is available NOW in Phuket @ 10,999 baht. The monthly subscription is 840 Baht. I believe all prices are plus VAT (7%). Strangely, since the service started I’ve noticed an increase in speed with my old 580 aircard – perhaps there’s less subscribers to it now ———end comment——– This card will work on MacosX 10.4 and 10.5. Aswell as Linux and most Windows flavors.

The installation routine and troubleshooting procedures should be the same as this comparable model: CCU-680 / CDU-680 /CNU-680 installation and troubleshooting issues. The installation is pretty straightforward, all instructions and drivers are contained on a flashdrive within the card itself. You will most certainly need a Y-cable sucking the juice from two USB ports each delivering 5 volts rather than just 1 port of 5 volt for these revision A cards. I am pretty sure the CCU-680 card will be delivered with a USB Y-cable.

Phuket and Chon Buri will be the first provinces to receive HSDPA/HSPA access from DTAC-CAT telecom joint venture.

–

DTAC to Launch 3G in Two Provinces

DTAC, the country’s second-largest mobile operator, is preparing to introduce high-speed packet access (HSPA) commercial services in Phuket and Chon Buri as part of its five billion baht third-generation (3G) investment plan.

A nationwide offering is expected in 2009 in line with the wider availability of HSPA devices, including mobile handsets, laptop computers and data cards, said Sigve Brekke, the chief executive officer of DTAC.

Mr Brekke said that DTAC today would submit a letter to the National Telecommunications Commission requesting approval to upgrade its analogue 850 Megahertz frequency to HSPA.

DTAC has been in talks with CAT Telecom to form a joint-venture firm to provide 3G services on the 850 MHz frequency. The NTC has also given approval to DTAC’s larger rival, Advanced Info Service (AIS) to upgrade 30 base stations to HSPA in a programme expected to cost $20 million.

“If the NTC gives us approval shortly, we can start providing HSPA commercial services by the end of this year,” Mr Brekke said. “Phuket and Chon Buri will be the first two commercial provinces for HSPA.”

He said DTAC selected Phuket and Chon Buri as they were small areas with high data communication usage and potential demand. Target customers in Phuket would be foreigners, and in Chon Buri they would be factory owners and workers. He said DTAC would provide customers a simple package concept with a possible monthly fee of 450 baht and no limit on data volume usage.

DTAC will need to install additional 1,800 HSPA base stations for nationwide services.

The company currently has 9,000 2G base stations.

Mr Brekke said DTAC planned to introduce HSPA services on a development platform consisting of network, content and handsets. Data communications services would be designed for laptop users while music, television and video streaming would be for handset customers.

He said the 850 MHz frequency offered a great advantage over others including 900 MHz due to its wider coverage and ability to work with a variety of devices.

In comparison, Mr Brekke said, WiMax on top of the 900 frequency would not work with handsets, but only laptop computers.

“I don’t understand why other operators are moving to WiMax instead of HSPA even though it can provide services on both laptops and the popular handsets,” he said.

DTAC, he added, would not wait for 3G licences from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) due to the unclear policy.

“We are definitely moving into HSPA where the technology doesn’t need a new licence, as it can be operated under the existing concession,” he said.

Source: redOrbit Technology News – 02 April 2008

This article is also valid for installation and troubleshooting for CCU-680 card provided by CAT telecom in Thailand.

For a while i have been a customer of “Nordisk Mobiltelefon/ICE” through their 3G service utilizing the CDMA2000 EVDO rev 0 technology in Norway.

Since i had been in Thailand for a while i had not used it much, when i arrived home they had a booth selling their new rev A service, so i naturally upgraded.

They provided me a CDMA2000 EVDO rev. A card for 450MHz band, they had branded it D-50, but if you look for this card on the pages of C-motech you will find it is branded CNU-680.

It is a card provided by a company very well known to me, by the name of C-motech.

C-motech is also provider of the CCU-650 and CCU-680 cards  which provides great flexibility aswell as mobility for mobile workers which needs to access the internet in Thailand.

I have tried the CNU-680 on my installation of MacosX 10.5 Leopard, i had a couple off issues with this in the beginning, but now it appears to be smooth sailing.

The documentation provided is written for MacosX 10.4, the 10.4 based documentation which is provided on files on memory within the card itself states that you should use “WWAN support” choice as the driver, if you are using 10.5 you will be using the “Franklin” driver.

I stated before that i had some issues at first, i resolved that by first deleting all of my connections for the CNU-680 card, and then i downloaded and installed

Franklin connection manager
Then rebooted, and then i ran the SwitchDriver.sh script.

Then i created the connection using the “Franklin” driver.

This connection creation will be similar to the connection showed here.

For the Scandinavian ICE/Nordisk mobiletelefon connection you will need these extra details:

dial: #777

username: cdma

password: cdma

You might or might not run into these difficulties, i have not updated my MacosX installation for a while due to poor bandwidth, and the driver upgrade provided in “Franklin connection manager” installation package might already be upstream.

Before i did those things in that order i always needed to run that SwitchDriver.sh script everytime i needed to reconnect, and it would disconnect after a short time.

There seems to be at least one company offering this very same card (CNU-680.) in another country on the same frequency in Russia, they also have branded their card D-50.

The name of the Russian company providing this service is “Sky Link”

I also notice that this company ships their USB EVDO CDMA d-50/CNU-680 card with the same way of installing it through the SwitchDriver.sh script.

This card also has a slot for a sim card, but on my card the sim card is not present.

With the service of “Nordisk Mobiltelefon” you should be able to surf all over Scandinavia with your subscription in any of these countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark).

Also i might add that “Nordisk Mobiltelefon” providing this service also was kind enough to put a freeze on my subscription while i was away in Thailand, only a quick call away.

Norwegian website for “ICE/Nordisk Mobiltelefon” is ICE – Nordisk Mobiltelefon.

Their website is sadly not in English, so if you do not speak Norwegian i do suggest you give them a call, most Norwegians are good at English.

The card is available at a Monthly subscription fee of 399,- NOK (Norwegian kroner.)

The price of the card depending on wether you will accept a one year binding subscription is either 1495,- without a binding subscription/contract or 495,- with such a bond.

A binding subscription is when you get a lower price for some hardware, but agree to a certain minimum term of using their service in return for that lower price.

In this case that term is one year.

The CNU-650 comes with an USB Y-cable for extra USB power, in my case this one was not long enough, since i only have 2 USB connectors on my laptop and they are located on opposite side of the chassis, so i had to buy a one metre extension to be able to fit it to one of the sides, but it did appear to work just aswell without this Y-Cable.

But just in case i will run into any problems if i bring it with me on the bus or the train, and if in that case it will need any extra power to respond to a faint signal or would do alot some extra computation when changing between towers, then it should have enough juice for the job.

I also saw someplace that they might offer service in Iceland and Ireland.

I might look more into that at a later time.

Latency appears to be much improved with CDMA2000 EVDOrev A compared to the former Rev. 0.

Also perhaps more on that either in this post or a later post.

Related links:
EVDO – Wireless on Bus Krabi<->Had Yai

EVDO – Wireless on Bus Phuket<->Krabi

Going back from a Visa run to Khota Baru in Malaysia and after staying a couple of days in Sungai Golok in Naratiwat.

On the train from Sungai Golok to Had Yai .

Using a connection with the CCU-650 and CAT telecom CDMA2000-EVDO network, performance is fine for some of the way, but so far it seems that you might be better off having a booster antenna, it seems the coverage is abit patchy on this stretch for upto 15-20 minutes at a time in travel time with no connection.

I just had a patch with no connection just before arriving at Ru So, Naratiwat.

Which lasted about 15-20 minutes in travel time.

Towards Yala it worked better than towards Ru so.

On Yala station it works great.

This would come as no surprise, usually mobile networks like this will be built around major roads, usually the railway are not included in such plans, so if you are putting in alot of time on the train and want to get some work done, you will probably need some amplifier or booster antenna for your CDMA card to be connected without interruption.

But you would probably still be able to get some work done, but be prepared to do a fair share of redialing if you are not equipped with a booster or amplifier for your CDMA2000 card.

The view is nice though, and a good break from any work related tasks.

You should get a similar experience with the Sierra Aircard 580, or when the new CCU-680 becomes available delivering revision A of the CDMA-2000-EVDO technology.

Additional perhaps useful information:

Sungai Golok also has at least TT&T provided internet from Maxnet, i tried this one in an internet cafeteria down there, it worked well and was responsive.

Okay boys and girls, its conspiracy time!

We have a great service in Thailand which goes by the name of CDMA2000-EVDO.

Some of the hardware provided for this network is provided by Huawei of China.

Deplyoing such a network requires licensing cost, some of the licenses for CDMA technology are owned by Qualcomm.

CDMA2000 has had a competing technology which sprung out from GSM technology, and this is generally refered to as WCDMA-UMTS.

It now appears that UMTS is winning, perhaps not such a big loss for Qualcomm though, since they also has some licensing ownership inside the UMTS technology.

I do know that CAT telecom and Huawei had some issues on the deployment of this, could this has been related to licenses which Huawei or CAT telecom needs to pay to Qualcomm?

And more importantly, is Qualcomm having an unfair advantage in owning parts of two technologies which are competing?

Huawei is an emerging player in the global market, and it is Chinese, could Qualcomm because of this have any agenda to try to damage the position of Huawei in the market?

Could it have a vested interest in halting the growth of Huawei thus favoring the two competing companies in which they are culturally more adapted to (Cisco, Juniper.)

Could it be that to this end Qualcomm obfuscated licensing issues, or raised the price unfairly to create slowdowns in deployement?

I do wonder if we will ever know the answer to this.

Or could it just be that everyone is fed up with Qualcomm, and WCDMA-UMTS is the lesser of all evils, giving Qualcomm a smaller piece of the pie.

I am sure that official correspondance would show the normal corporate cloudtalk.

Lawsuits seems to be part of corporate life.

Specifically this following one is interesting, and is in some way almost directly related to what i am talking about above:

Broadcom vs Qualcomm – unfair CDMA monopoly

Some other general ones aswell:

Broadcom vs Qualcomm 2

Nokia vs Qualcomm

Qualcomm is otherwise known as creator of the nifty e-mail program Eudora, with which i started my Internet communicating days.