Installation problem Virgin Mobile MC 760 Kubuntu 10.10

[pjj]

My machine is a small notebook ( Averatec) running Kubuntu 10.10. I purchased the Virgin Mobile USB modem MC 760 from Novatel. It worked almost right out of the box - after a few modifications.

Had a crash of the OS and reinstalled the operating system. From there on the modem refused to work. I have taken exactly the previously successful steps. Also followed all solutions to the problem given on the Internet. Nothing works.

The modem is activated via Windows and directly by Virgin Mobile. The problem must be somewhere in a missing file or file modification. I cannot figure it out at all. Paid for a month's worth of data access and have not been able to use the modem in the last two weeks. I am going crazy over this.
Traveling a lot I need to have a reliable internet connection.
Since it worked before it can be reasonably assumed that it should work this time as well. As far as I can see the only difference between
the present installation and the previous one is the newer kernel version. However, I tried the older version and the modem did not work either.

Please help me get out of this maddening situation. I must be overlooking something obvious, I guess.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

[Rubberman]

Usually once a USB broadband modem is activated, you don't need to do anything other than connect with it. FWIW, these are usally seen as PPTP devices. I know that with my old Sprint modem Ubuntu systems (7.04 and later) would recognize it and connect automatically. Have you tried to connect with it via Windows since your Linux OS went south for the winter? If so, did that work, or was the modem still "bricked"?

[pjj]

Usually once a USB broadband modem is activated, you don't need to do anything other than connect with it. FWIW, these are usally seen as PPTP devices. I know that with my old Sprint modem Ubuntu systems (7.04 and later) would recognize it and connect automatically. Have you tried to connect with it via Windows since your Linux OS went south for the winter? If so, did that work, or was the modem still "bricked"?

Thank you for your reply. The modem worked previously under Kubuntu just like you described. It did not work that way this time around. It never worked in Windows - not then not now.

After long desperate searches and attempts to remedy the situation using posted solutions, I finally found the answer to the problem right on my computer.

Kubuntu 10.10 as many other Kubuntu kermels use usb_modeswitch to deal with the hybrid USB broadband modem. Modeswitch is meant to eject the mass storage part of the device and turn it into a modem instead. However, a slight modification of the file usb_modeswitch.conf is required to make the device work.
Internet code for the change obviously lacked an essential line. I found it in the directory /etc/usb_modeswitch. The directory has a great number of files with very cryptic file names. You almost have to look at every single one to find out what a particular file is used for. I
finally found at the very end of the list a file with code to be added to the file usb_modeswitch.conf in the /etc directory.

Madethe changes, saved the file and, voila, the modem worked.
I should also mention for reasons of accuracy that I also installed two more files (new files added on) with other modifications.

I do however suspect that the files are really not needed because usb_modeswitch is supposed to take care of the device switching automatically. And I do not want to tempt my luck by removing the files for test purposes.

Finally, Network Manager lets you set up a Mobile Broadband connection. Open NM, go to Moile Broadband, click on Add, select CDMA from the drop down menu that pops up.
The setup screen will also ask for a number, a user name and a password.

Mobile broadband does not need user name and password. I used #777 as mobile phone number, #777 as password and my actual account number as user name.

Last time around I used 'user' instead. It really does not make a difference.

So, I consider the problem as solved.

Thanks again for your input.

[Rubberman]

Glad to hear you got it sorted out! As a wise person once said "Give a person a fish, and they will eat for a day. Teach them how to fish, and they will never go hungry."... Posting details of how you solved your problem can help a lot of other folks as well. Thanks.