How to setup Reliance Netconnect mobile broadband connection in Linux

During my stay in Kolkata last year, I decided to take up Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ mobile broadband connection to get rid of the pathetic BSNL broadband connection. The connection was quite reasonable and I was happy with the public review of the datacard.

 

The datacard comes in a very small package which includes a mini cd and a usb cord. The cd  contains the device driver for Windows , Mac and to my surprise , it also had a small file which to me looked like a USB driver for Linux.  Me, being a primary Linux user, decided to give the datacard a try in my Ubuntu installation using the network manager’s connection wizard. It must be noted that all new datacards are automatically detected by the latest Ubuntu release so  I did not need any driver installation. I use Pinguy OS based on Ubuntu 10.10.

Inserting the datacard in the USB port did not pop up any automatic connection wizard. I had to right click on the network manager icon to get into Connections.

Once I got into the network connections page, I selected “Mobile Broadband”. That section was empty as I had never added any Mobile Broadband connection before. I clicked on “Add” to create a new connection. That gave me a new Connection setup wizard.

The connection wizard was quite simple and consisted of only four pages after which I was up and running.

The following screenshots will show how easily I managed to get the Reliance Mobile broadband working. Please note that the following screenshot detects the USB device manufacturer. If your distribution does not detect it, do not panic. Just select “Any device” and click “Forward”. Select “India” from the list of countries in the next screen.

Once the wizard was complete, I clicked on apply, and it straightaway took me to the network connections page to enter the username and password. The remainder of the settings were automatically entered by the system.

All I did on this page was add the username and password, checked the “Connect Automatically” box and clicked on Apply.

That’s it! The connection was setup and I was connected the Reliance network in seconds.

I always keep my datacard connected to my machine when starting up my system. This enables automatic connection and I don’t have to fiddle around to connect to the internet. If you are on a prepaid plan and you want to save your broadband usage, you can always disconnect from the network connections drop-down menu.

Since all  manager Linux distributions use network manager, I am sure, the above procedure will work for all distros.