The modem doesn't come with an Ethernet port. All it has is a proprietary connector to which you can connect a proprietary USB cable, or a proprietary Ethernet cable.
By default the modem comes with a USB cable. An Ethernet cable will set you back an additional R250.
For freeBSD, you'll have to make use of the Ethernet cable. The device will then look like PPPoE device, which should be accessible via any popular PPPoE stack on BSD. You don't really need much "control". It will dial out when it's requested to do so. Reading signal strength, etc, will have to be done from a Windows PC, or via the Linux drivers. The USB modem looks like a Hayes modem with an "AT" command set, which is used to read signal strength.
Authentication is CHAP, and the rest of the encapsulation over PPPoE is bog standard PPP. There are a few others around here that have used MyWireless on BSD.
You will have to "configure" the modem initially, with a username, and password using the USB cable and a Windows PC, with the MyWireless software. Thereafter, you can use it on Ethernet without hassles.
I wrote a linux driver (if you're considering switching [
])
Check my .signature for a link to my site.
As far is range is concerned, yes latency appears to increase with distance. Most people however, are still able to fill their pipe 100% even with signal strengths as low as 7%. Latency is the only issue, in fact latency is an issue, even with good signal. We're talking ~80-200ms here, and it tends to spike in that range quite a lot.
If that doesn't bother you, then by all means, it's great.
I was worried about the 24mnth contract too, but then again, I have 2 cellphones on the same basis, and that didn't bother me. The service definately works, and is good. I'd advise getting someone to test the signal strength in your location though, since the "Zone Locator" is more of a "Zone non-locator" than anything else. It's generally useless...
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