I recently moved my data only mobile plan from 3 to Optus due to their support of fallback to GPRS at no additional charge (ie better coverage). Getting it to work on Mac was a trial.
With this came the Optus Roamer USB modem, which is actually a Huawei E220 modem in a “nice” Optus white and yellow case.
The problem was I wanted to run this on both my PC and my Mac, and Optus don’t support Mac OSX. The good thing is, Huawei do, and drivers are available (but hard to find).
Here’s what you do (new instructions – old ones below):
1. Unplug the modem (if you have it plugged in).
2. Download the Mobile Connect for Mac OSX below.
3. Run “Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg” and follow the instructions.
4. Now plug in your modem.
5. Open System Preferences, then Network.
6. If running Leopard (10.5.x), click on the “+” and from the Interface drop-down choose “HUAWEI Mobile”, otherwise under Tiger (10.4.x) set “Show” to “Network Port Configurations” and choose “New”, then name it and select “HUAWEI Mobile” from the port drop-down.
7. Name it whatever you want (I called my Optus Wireless), and click “Create” (or OK under Tiger).
8. Select your newly created connection and place *99# in the Telephone Number.
9. Click on “Advanced”.
10. Under modem, choose Vendor “Other”, and then choose the HUAWEI 3G Modem (could be named differently – but will say Huawei) as the Model.
11. Click OK, then click on Connect to test your connection.
Optional Step: If you want to try a program made to give you more info and monitor your E220 on Mac OSX, try CheetahWatch, although I haven’t had much luck getting it to work which with some quick help from the developer I got working (looks like it was a corrupted download).
Alternate Instructions – Use only if the above doesn’t work:
1. Unplug the modem (if you have it plugged in).
2. Download the Mac drivers below.
3. Run “HuaweiDataCardDriver(2.6)-intel.pkg” and follow the instructions.
4. Once done, run “Huawei_DataCard_Drv_App_Intel.pkg”, again following instructions.
5. Follow the above instructions from step 4.
For “3” Users, Evan has a great guide (with nice easy to follow graphics) here.
Regards,
Shane.
Download:
Download Huawei E220 Mobile Connect for Mac OSX
Optional:
Download Huawei E220 – Mac OSX Intel Drivers *
* Try this if method above does not work
Optional:
Download Huawei E220 – Mac OSX PowerPC Drivers *
* Try this if method above does not work
shasam 
Just updated the Mobile Connect download to the latest (April 2008) version after doing some testing over the last month. Seems stable and instructions don’t change from above. If you already have the previous version installed (ie got it before I posted this) then you can update just by running the installer.Shane.
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These drivers also worked for the E160 bundled with the Bob Breitband package in Austria. I've blogged about my struggle over here:<a href="http://parentheses.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/bob-breitband-on-a-g4-power-pc-ibook-mac/“ rel=”nofollow”>http://parentheses.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/bob…
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Thanks…!! The best of it is that these instructions/downloads also work with Snow Leopard 🙂
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HI Shane, great guide. Just thought I'd throw in the obvious (to some) as I don't think it's been mentioned.The APN needs to be as follows: – prepaid = “preconnect”- postpaid = “connect”Hope this helps some of you out there.
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Thanks man, just what I was looking for. Worked like a charm Thanks so much…
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Huawei's page for latest driver for E220:<a href="http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/doc/list.do?type=-1&id=736“ rel=”nofollow”>http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/doc/list.do?…With this HUAWEI driver, the Vendor is Apple, not Other! Worked on OS 10.5.8 laptop.Thanks for your instructions!
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Can we use this driver with HUAWEI E270??…where can I find drivers for this modem???…I need driver for Mac OSX 10.4.x…..??…Please…HELP!!!!
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I am new user to macbook pro and m trying to install wireless broadband but m not being able to run the program … Can anybody give me some help plz..
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Thankyou! This was fantastic! Such an easy set up….been arguing with optus for a week.
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Shane,All these instructions look simple enough, like stated below in another post how are you meant to do this when you are offline, or are you meant to do it on another computer with the internet? Also when i open the file above i come up with a whole bunch of other files but the one above (“Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg”).Some help would be absolutley fantasticKind Regards
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