How to create a Wifi hotspot using a Telecom 3g XT T-stick

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › How to create a Wifi hotspot using a Telecom 3g XT T-stick

1 | 2

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#395264 24-Oct-2010 16:44

Great, please do that. I'm kinda needing to have butter on both sides of the bread, hence the presence of the ADSL router...we could get an ADSL port at any point within that 71-day wait time.

Originally I had been talking to the Netcomm guy about another offering that included an interface to the phone network and he talked me into having the 3G18Wn because of its compatibility with the ZTE MF636. I did check its specs and its reviews but somehow missed the fact that it lacked that interface. I was a bit taken aback when it got here, actually, to find it depended on an external gateway to do wired broadband.

Cameltrain

13 posts

Geek

#395504 25-Oct-2010 16:45

It might be worthwhile trying this procedure. Connect the device to your computer by the ethernet cable. This will allow extra functionality in the manual setup process. I'm going from memory here because I do not have the device with me. In the Administrator? tab in the set up menu you can manually insert the Telecom APN. Initially I had it correct on the face of things but no internet connection eventuated. By inserting it manually with an ethernet connection and making sure that the country (in a separate drop down menu) was NZ rather than Australia, the connection then worked.

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#395544 25-Oct-2010 19:24

Do you remember whether you had to put in your Telecom username (e.g. cameltrain.xadsl@xtra.co.nz) and password in the 3G setup?

Cameltrain

13 posts

Geek

#395546 25-Oct-2010 19:34

The unit I set up was a Netcom 3GT1WN Travel unit. To connect via ethernet e.g. to an ADSL line it was necessary to set up a separate configuration and I do not recall whether there was an easy way to switch configurations. Anyway as it wasn't part of the intent in the exercise I was involved with I didn't get to that point. However I expect that you would have to because you would be connecting to the internet by a quite different route.

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#395644 25-Oct-2010 23:10

The device I have actually provides for both configurations - if one could just find out what it is *meant* to be! I've tried configuring it both with and without service login parameters. Incidentally, the Tstick works just fine when installed onto the netbook and used as just a stand-alone "wouter".

It seems absurd that Telecom doesn't make a manual connection Howto available to its customers nor even, it seems, to their support people. I'm told they are not permitted to give advice about devices they don't sell. Well, darnit, other vendors *do* sell them and they are known to work, provided they are properly configured. It's not national secrets I'm looking for and I can't believe I'm the only person in the country who needs to do this thing.

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#395856 26-Oct-2010 15:59

I don't know how to mark this one SOLVED - but it is. The story is that the Netcomm 3G18WN is currently shipped with a buggy firmware version (1.0.18.0, dated 8 Feb 2010) that fails to pass the dialup number correctly. I'm told this bug does not affect the 3G17WN model. The firmware upgrade ntc_3g18wn_1.0.45.0.dat from the Dynalink NZ website is the solution.

The bug is not 100% fixed: you still have to enter the APN for the XT b/b service into the field manually in order to make it "stick". It's not a big deal, as long as you know about it.

The firmware upgrade also fixes another bug, whereby the physical Ethernet connection from the ADSL router to the WAN port on the 3G18WN didn't work...but did work if you plugged it into one of the regular Ethernet ports. Now the reverse is true: it works properly in the WAN port and won't work at all through any of the other ports. I got *bit* by this for a couple of frustrating hours after the firmware upgrade, on reverting to Failover mode, until I remembered that problem and saw fit to test it out.

So now, after all that, I do have a very nice solution to my need to run a wireless hotspot off the Telecom ZTE MF656 T-stick. Signal strength out here from the Sky tower to the wopwops of Franklin District is surprisingly good (3-4 pips, even 5 for a while) - not too much worse than what we're getting on wire.

Incidentally, I confirmed with Telecom that you *do* need to configure their DNS servers (202.27.158.40 and 202.27.156.72) into the client setup for XT B/b just as you do for wired ADSL, even tho' the very clued-up chap at Dynalink NZ thought (in theory) that the TStick would do it automatically. You do NOT need the Telecom username and password, though...which kinda suggests it wouldn't be a good thing to lose your Tstick somewhere!

Thanks to all who offered suggestions on this.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79288 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#395859 26-Oct-2010 16:01

Thanks for the update, but about the DNS I have multiple sticks here, and more than one 3G WiFi router, and always had IP and DNS automatically configured from the service side after connection (DHCP)...

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#395881 26-Oct-2010 16:28

That's cool - I'm glad it works so easily for you. I found that using the TStick stand-alone, it didn't matter if the client DNS param was configured either way. Through this particular router it does matter. ;-)

gordonz

52 posts

Master Geek

#396182 27-Oct-2010 11:30

Received my Netcomm 3G18Wn yesterday, comes with instructions on the settings required for Telecom XT, worked initially but needed a reboot after every 15 min.
I updated the firmware with the latest V45. Seems to work well now but I am just testing it in the simplest of setups before connecting it to my network.
Will keep you posted if I have any problems.

HoggetTech

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#397066 28-Oct-2010 22:25

What are the "settings required for Telecom XT" as I cannot get the mf636 to connect on autoAPN using latest 1.0.45.0 firmware. thanx.

gordonz

52 posts

Master Geek

#397071 28-Oct-2010 22:36

Here are the instructions that came with my router if they apply in your case

under WWAN (3G)
"disable" Auto-APN
select "New Zealand"
click on "Telecom NZ XT"
Enter "*99#"in the dial box
click "apply"

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#397074 28-Oct-2010 22:41

(from Netcomm support):
a. "Disable" the Auto-APN option
b. Select "New Zealand" in the drop-down box (default is Australia)
c. Click on the "Telecom NZ XT" under Choose an APN here
d. Enter "*99#" in the Dial box
e. Then click "Apply"

At step c. it is recommended you copy the text exactly (not clipboard it) and then actually *type it manually* back into the field. This is due to a persistent bug in the firmware.

Another suggestion from the Dynalink guy was to change the ping host from www.netcomm.com.au to www.google.co.nz. Not essential though: it's just that the Oz Netcomm site can be slow responding to ping.

Telecom support recommends putting its two DNS servers in all client setups (see my earlier SOLVED post), so that's what I have done.

Watch the Status screen...you should see one of those revolving thingoes and the word "Connecting", plus other stuff that wasn't there before. It takes a couple of minutes here for the first client to connect but after that it's just a few seconds for other clients.

gordonz

52 posts

Master Geek

#397797 30-Oct-2010 17:58

My 3G18Wn box works fine but I am just using the XT network as my broadband (rather than as a back-up).
I get 3 to 5.5Mbs download when connected by by LAN cable to the 3G18Wn.
The problem I have is the WiFi from the 3G18Wn is so very slow, roughly 0.3Mbs download and 1Mbs upload. I tried different radio channels 4, 6, 10 and 13 etc and different network modes 11b/g/n mixed and single modes but still the same problem.
I have 2 other WiFi boxes running but these are on different channels.
I have now turned off the wireless on the 3G18Wn and have plugged in another wireless router which works fine, just seems a shame having the 3G18Wn doing only half the job it was meant to do!!
Anyone got any ideas what the problem could be?

helebor

15 posts

Geek

#398306 1-Nov-2010 07:45

gordonz: Received my Netcomm 3G18Wn yesterday, comes with instructions on the settings required for Telecom XT, worked initially but needed a reboot after every 15 min.
I updated the firmware with the latest V45. Seems to work well now but I am just testing it in the simplest of setups before connecting it to my network.
Will keep you posted if I have any problems.

You don't have a 2.4Ghz cordless phone in the environment, do you? Dropouts (and the latency problems you described later) would be caused by that, if so. There is a screen in the setup where you can tweak the exact frequency that the router picks up (which I didn't touch on the setup here: our phones are 997 MHz). It looked as if all the possible settings were within that 2.4 - 2.5 GHz range, though, so probably not much help.

Could be worth trying a different channel, too. I let the 3G18Wn use its default channel but, previously, I had my Edimax AP on channel 11, which worked fine.

1 | 2