Running a Huawei E620 Wireless 3G Modem (Vodafone-Branded) On Another Network

I bought a cheap 3G PCMCIA modem on eBay ($25 instead of $140 new) and it came with Vodafone branding, but I wanted to run it on the Virgin/Optus network instead. Luckily, the card itself is not locked by default, but the standard Vodafone Mobile Connect software appears to be restricted to working only with Vodafone SIM cards. You get the ugly "Please insert correct SIM" message...

But do not fear! After a little searching, I got things working quite easily.

Download the Huawei E620 Mobile Partner software from the Huawei site. Although the descriptions are far from helpful, I just used the top link, and ensure I saved it as a ZIP extension. (Or you can try downloading via the attachment at the bottom of this page.)

• Don't insert your PCMCIA card just yet
• Extract the ZIP file
• Install the Mobile Partner software from the "Setup" folder
• Run the application from the desktop icon
• Insert your card. Windows should detect the new hardware and popup a little balloon informing you of this.
• Ensure you have the correct APN settings in Mobile Partner > Tools > Options > Profile Management
• Choose your profile on the main screen and click Connect...
• Surf away!

Connecting to Virgin looked like this:

Good luck.

Simon.