Huawei E3276 150Mbps LTE USB Modem

ginggs

ginggs

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Although I don't live within their LTE trial coverage area, Cell-C gave me an E3276 LTE modem. I don't whether this was because of the number of 2GB and 5GB promotional SIM cards I have RICA'd in my name, MDMA, or simply because they were getting tired of me nagging.

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E3276 Tech Specs
Network BandsLTE FDD: 800/900/2600/ 1800 /2100
UMTS: 2100/AWS/900/1900
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900
Max download speedup to 150 Mbps under 20M bandwidth
AntennaExternal Antenna Interface, Receive Diversity
External interfacesUSB 2.0 High Speed, SIM/USIM card: standard 6-pin SIM card interface, Micro SD Card Slot
Dimensions92mm x 32mm x 14mm
Weight30g

The E3276 has two external antenna connectors:
n5kdoj.jpg

The modem only reports the signal strength from the external antenna connector closest to the USB connector (the right-hand one in the pic above).
I got similar speed test results on Vodacom's UMTS network with my antenna plugged into either connector. It will be interesting to see the results of two antennae or a splitter.

Also available:
Huawei AF23 Sharing Dock:
17uxpx.png


My Cell-C LTE SIM card is not active yet, but I was able to register on their UMTS 900 network using another SIM card. Unfortunately, it had no data on it so I wasn't able to run any speed tests.

The modem came with a crippled version (no USSD, etc.) of Mobile Partner 23. The drivers that were installed would no longer detect my Vodafone K4605 modem, but worked fine with my E1820. I'll either have to find drivers that can identify the Vodafone devices, or flash my K4605 with the E372 firmware.

The modem only appears as a network device to the operating system, so no more dial-up networking connections.
Because of this, the modem currently does not appear to work with MikroTik routers. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
It still has a secondary serial port for diagnostics which can be used for measuring signal strength, sending USSD, etc.
Linux support: see post #11 here.
 
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Very nice of Cell-C, their gesture is appreciated - I appreciate MDMA, and it's unique info display. :)

I also appreciate your evaluation and reporting on your findings.

A big thanks, to both, you and Cell-C for being so forth coming in this arena.
 
2nd that. It gives ginggs motivation, so development keeps going... :)
 
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Great stuff ginggs! Now you need to nag Vodacom and Jannie to send you an LTE more for testing.
 
nuyork said:
Great stuff ginggs! Now you need to nag Vodacom and Jannie to send you an LTE more for testing.
Click to expand...
At the MyBB conference Jannie said he would organize an LTE modem for me, but I guess you guys don't have LTE coverage in Cape Town yet?
 
This modem works fine with the Dovado Tiny router, in case anyone requires a router for it.

It should also work with the more sophisticated Dovado routers.
 
Jola said:
This modem works fine with the Dovado Tiny router, in case anyone requires a router for it.

It should also work with the more sophisticated Dovado routers.
Click to expand...

whats the price of Dovado Tiny and where can I find it locally?
did a quick search yesterday but didnt really find anything...
 
rodga said:
whats the price of Dovado Tiny and where can I find it locally?
did a quick search yesterday but didnt really find anything...
Click to expand...

I could not find it locally either, so I ordered it on eBay from a German company called Varia.

It cost about EUR110 incl shipping, and I had to pay around R180 in duties.

A bit expensive but it works well !
 
Jola said:
I could not find it locally either, so I ordered it on eBay from a German company called Varia.

It cost about EUR110 incl shipping, and I had to pay around R180 in duties.

A bit expensive but it works well !
Click to expand...
ouch
was hoping the price would be tiny too :(

see it can be shipped from amazon for 97GBP
 
Jola said:
This modem works fine with the Dovado Tiny router, in case anyone requires a router for it.

It should also work with the more sophisticated Dovado routers.
Click to expand...

Hi from Oz,

The E3276 also works with most of the very cheap and reliable TPILNK 3G/4G routers using a special OpenWRT image. Well we just got it going! Here is it's story.

Pretty straightforward. Details are here.

The TPLINK 703n (Chinese market router) is the cheapest available at around US$22. It is a superb and very tiny router.

If you read the wiki, this version of 'Openwrt' in conjunction with 'Modem Gui', will do amazing things.

If your particular modem won't work, drop in to the Whirlpool support thread and we'll have it going in a jiffy. :)
 
have been over half of durban and tried about 5 different routers and not one work with this 4g stick. Cell C won't even sell me the older black 3g stick unless I get one that comes with data
 
Mr Feesh said:
have been over half of durban and tried about 5 different routers and not one work with this 4g stick. Cell C won't even sell me the older black 3g stick unless I get one that comes with data
Click to expand...

Do you want an E1820?
I've got one you can buy or borrow if your stuck
 
I wonder if this E3276 is flashable to work on TDD 2300
I see 8ta are selling them as a device with their 3G/LTE packages
eg: http://www.8ta.com/plans/plan/smartinternet-75gb-promo
+ i also see this
As world's first LTE(FDD/TDD) Cat4 USB dongle Data Card, the Huawei E3276 modem support both FDD and TDD LTE nets.
Click to expand...

Anyone one with the 8ta E3276 that can tell us what LTE networks it can see?
Tools/Options/Network/Registration Mode - select manual & refresh.

Cell C E3276 don't pick up 8ta LTE(2300TDD)
 
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sajunky said:
Very unlikely.Did you ever heard that flashing could change manufacturing band selection?
Click to expand...

I seem to recall differant E1820 bands being available with different firmware - particularly firmware from Canadian/US vendors as an example.
 
Don't count on it. If you flash E367 with different firmware, you get different firmware version, but bands remain the same. In your example E1820 has analog baseband filters, these are not flash programable, frequency is fixed. Newer devices might be fully programmable, but even in such case manufacturer will protect this settings from user flashing due to the market targetting.
 
sajunky said:
Don't count on it. If you flash E367 with different firmware, you get different firmware version, but bands remain the same. In your example E1820 has analog baseband filters, these are not flash programable, frequency is fixed. Newer devices might be fully programmable, but even in such case manufacturer will protect this settings from user flashing due to the market targetting.
Click to expand...

Ok...was more curiosity than anything..looking at plans of attack.
After i posted that post i went digging some more & 8ta's specs for that modem don't cover it for their LTE anyway so maybe it isn't even a differant variant than the cellc one & only any good for use on their 3G.
 
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RichardG said:
Also another interesting find
http://business.telkom.co.za/productrenderer/public/productcatalogue?pid=999000034135&cid=55
Click to expand...
From RichardG's link:
Huawei E3276 LTE Modem

Features:

LTE FDD: 800/900/2600/1800/2100
Data download speed up to 150Mbps
Dimensions: 14mm x 32mm x 92mm, 30g
Supports MicroSD card
2x2 WiFi antennas. Has 2 external antenna connectors
Click to expand...
It seems that this modem that Telkom are selling is not suitable for their LTE TDD @ 2300MHz network.
 
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