Optus USB modem prepaid. Hauwei E3351 and E5251

[april]

I have just bought an Optus USB modem prepaid .
What a versitile and useful bit of hardware it is .
I think it is a Hauwei E3351 device and I am about to pull it apart to see if I can find an external antenna port or somewhere to hard wire one in.

The Vodaphone competitor sold in Big W with this one actually has a hole cut in the plastic over what seems to be an antenna port but I cant test that yet.

Just wanted to let people know of the usefulness of these .
In Australia a $30 recharge will get you 4 Gig and a month to use it and a $50 recharge gets you 7 Gig I think and a full year to use up.

They charge up just like mobile phones with all the options and vouchers. They come with some credit for the $29 price tag ,looks like that is only about another 200MB of data

ATM it looks like Optus are trying to get out of them at BigW stores as they are on special at $9


At this stage it is coming up as Eth1 and connecting fine as LAN (Local Area Network) but you need reasonable reception.

I get SMS functionality as well and contact storage etc. if I also buy MyCredit points but I have not done this yet

So I am getting better data rates than anything Telstra outputs with no lock ins and better speed than a phone broadband setup ---CRAZY
1.2Mb/sec.......1.67Mb/s next day



EDIT - Down to 100K at teatime busy time, downloading torrent, but speed test still said 1.2 ?

EDIT 2 -seems the sim works in other modems (Huawei E160E)with external antennas too!!!!

EDIT 3 -Despite these glowing reports Over two weeks now I have not gotten better than 100 to 200 KiB/sec speed doing torrents . On Broadband it was 800 KiB /s regularly. So someone is throttling the speed on torrents or fiddling the results on speed tests.

EDIT 4 - After 7 months I have not seen better than about 250Kbits downloading on any material so I reckon the speed tests are being detected and fudged .!

[april]

A bit more. Had a look for any antenna socket and I think I found one but so small I will not be able to solder to it but perhaps a feasibilty check to see if its doable.

The device seems well made on the mechanical side with gold contacts and circuitry. The only possibility of a socket is over the top of the " Ultrastick" marking .
See my picture attached Ignore the hole below the lettering as that was my error.

There are 4 small torx screws undone with T5x25 and then the plastic prises off. Drill the plastic then put it back together.

[Karl Godt]

I should have the same , number written on the card box , not on the stick itself .

I pay 5 Euros / month for 200MB full speed 3G and rest of month is throttled to 2G .

Usually I used the 5-GB-Option full-speed option ( rest throttled ) for 25 Euro/month which lasted 20-25 days full-speed a month in average .

Provider is Telefonica / O2 in Germany .

But you need to watch out when selecting the tariff in the browser :
Recently they had invented some cheat-tariffs , just 1 Cent less than normal , but without throttling for the rest of the month .


I found out that at clear skies the speed is worser than on clouded skies .
But even on such 2-G hours during clear skies , the speed had been 14-28 KBytes/Second ;
2-4 times above usual 2-G speed .

[april]

Karl the days of honesty in business seem to be well and truely over . They lie , cheat and hide what they are doing and you only find out when it is too late .

That's why i like these forums .!

[Fossil]

April. You are attempting something very similar to what I did using a 3G wireless device.
There are several ways in which to proceed. I must admit to never attempting to micro-solder a cable or pigtail aerial to one of those USB devices. Here is how I approached the issue.

Regardless of aerial, height above ground based obstacles and a clear line-of-sight is the only real answer.

The attic mounted 3G USB wifi was plugged into a 5 metre long *powered* USB cable. Powered, because there is signal loss with every extended metre. The USB cable was then plugged into a TP-Link 3G/3.75G Wireless N Router in the bedroom below. The 3G router was cabled via RSJ into the home modem/router on the ground floor beneath; from where a RSJ cable distributed the signal to the computer. It works!

Another means of advanced reception was also considered: using the USB 3G Wi-fi attached at the focal point of an old redundant satellite TV receiver/reflector.
A quick search using the terms 'usb wifi satellite dish reflector' will soon throw up a plethora of home-made devices. Just to get you started: http://www.binarywolf.com/249/index.htm

[april]

Yep thanks for that. I'm a ham radio operator on a boat so a Satellite type of antenna would probably be too sharp for what I am doing atm and too much movement. A Yagi type of thing probably would work so Ill investigate that more when I get some time . maybe the pringles can option..

I have an upright stick antenna on top of the mast for phone frequencies so more it is a matter of successfully attaching the very small external antenna plug to any device .

Found an Optus Huawei E5251 wifi modem I am experimenting with atm . It has a very small external antenna socket exposed as standard too so there should be a patch cable to suit it somewhere available. This will allow visitors to hook their phones and laptops in to it by wifi.

https://www.bigw.com.au/product/optus-h ... 000251336/

Selling them off for $15 atm

http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/offi ... 0001229953

[Fossil]

I'm a ham radio operator on a boat....

You are in a similar situation to one of our former (lost?) member's, mikeb, who had a boat moored on the UK's east coast (estuary). He too was experimenting with a USB wi-fi dongle. Height is the answer. Although connecting a cable to such a small area on the dongle's fragile circuit board and then keeping it in place on a mast is not for the faint of heart. What too of weatherproofing in a saltwater environment? Would a microwaveable sealed 'plastic' container and silicone sealant work?

[april]

I'm a ham radio operator on a boat....

You are in a similar situation to one of our former (lost?) member's, mikeb, who had a boat moored on the UK's east coast (estuary). He too was experimenting with a USB wi-fi dongle. Height is the answer. Although connecting a cable to such a small area on the dongle's fragile circuit board and then keeping it in place on a mast is not for the faint of heart. What too of weatherproofing in a saltwater environment? Would a microwaveable sealed 'plastic' container and silicone sealant work?

Away with the fairies I'm afraid . Stick antenna sits atop of mast . Normal radio coax cable down to underdeck then patch lead into hole in USB dongle( plugged in computer inside the cabin)

Wifi can be anywhere in the boat but patch lead needs to plug into it and 5V power supplied for recharge of its battery.Below are 3 types of plugs that I know of . Ill put the pics I have here .There are 2 more I came across later . I think this one uses the first one IP9 , got to measure it. Its tiny

[april]

I have the WiFiModem too --see other thread
Optus Huawei E5251 wifi modem
Great little device for $14
Did a speed test and see below for result .
This is with the signal saying it is poor . Its not been green yet.
P2P torrents got up to 500KiB/s too so its capable of fast connections compared to what I have had so far with adsl 2

[april]

Here is a better one of IP-9
See the little ceramic antenna surface mounted to the right ...think I knocked mine off accidentally....how to get back on?

This is not the Huawei modem just an example of connector

[april]

I sensed a line of doubt about this on other threads so I have made a screenshot of the files that come up when the modem Huawei 3351 is first plugged in . You only see them once on linux before you run the install script.

You run the install script and its all done for you.

[boof]

Today 5/8/2016 avail with 2GB at Harvey Norman Cannington Western Australia for $26- Glad to know it works with puppy. Supersceeded by E5573 45 wifi hotspot--$49 with 4GB.

[april]

Too much . You can get them for $15 still with 2Gig almost anywhere
Saw them in the PO last week and on ebay

[boof]

Problem: No carrier using precise 5.7.1:

E3351 modem configures as /dev/ttySL0 After manual selection and running probe --this not happening in 6.3.2--probe icon not showing once manual selection clicked. Modem never listed in modem window.

Q. I have 2 windows requiring entries: MYPHONENUMBER and APN

Please advise workable contents as of 8/8/2016 for Optus Australia.

I can't get 0198331111 to get carrier with preconnect, or yesinternet or yes internet or any combination involving *99***1#

[april]

Problem: No carrier using precise 5.7.1:

E3351 modem configures as /dev/ttySL0 After manual selection and running probe --this not happening in 6.3.2--probe icon not showing once manual selection clicked. Modem never listed in modem window.

Q. I have 2 windows requiring entries: MYPHONENUMBER and APN

Please advise workable contents as of 8/8/2016 for Optus Australia.

I can't get 0198331111 to get carrier with preconnect, or yesinternet or yes internet or any combination involving *99***1#

OK the APN should be "connect"
The dialling should be "*99#"
leave the others unchanged

I don't understand "this not happening in 6.3.2--probe icon not showing" what is that about?

You will notice the modem flashes green twice as its connecting then that changes to blue when actually connected to your tower . So its sitting there connected waiting for your computer to hook up to it.
My device is entered as "/dev/ttyUSB0"
Please try that and see if you can get connected then

[boof]

No Carrier!

/dev/ttySL0

screenshots attached

Disappointed, this was supposed to work in puppy. Not detected in slacko-6.3.2

Detected in precise-5.7.1, but no carrier found.

service exists, and has 1GB/28days on it. Not Happy, Jan!

[boof]

Konnected! Used a different modem and copied across the /dev/ * from 5.7.1 to 6.3.2. Allowed system to operate. All good.

[april]

Ive said it before and I'll say it again . You don't do it that way .
You do it as I have detailed and it will work immediately
The device is /dev/ttyUSB0

You are not going to get it with wvdial . It is running its own programs from the stick
It does the modeswitching automatically

I'll have to recheck this but it has a linux install file on its stick which you run once from the drive icon which only comes up if "install_linux" has not been run . Once it has been run the software needed has been installed , modeswitching is done automatically and you don't see the drive icon again.

This at least is in Precise 5.7.1 . I notice it shows a problem trying to run the install-linux script in Fatdog64 and I have posted for an answer there. You need to run it in your system, slacko-6.3.2 , and see if it installs . If it doesn't then ask the people running slacko programming.

[april]

I'm fairly sure now that After 7 months I have not seen better than about 250Kbits downloading on any material so I reckon the speed tests are being detected and fudged .


I bought the newer 4G version $24 and found it had two antenna connectors and an external antenna to suit with two connectors is available for $18 from China -ordered one too.

speed tests are being detected and fudged but here is the result on 4G .
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5807181915