Huawei E620 USB Modem & vnStat
January 1st, 2009Yesterday I invested in a new USB mobile broadband modem from Three, a Huawei E620. I have only been using it for a day, but I am already totally impressed with it. The device was super easy to set-up, all I had to do was plug it in and select my service provider, it was then ready to use with my CrunchBang/Ubuntu Intrepid system. As well as being impressed with the ease of set-up, I am also impressed with its connection quality; the connection has not dropped all day and the device has maintained an average speed of about 1MB. If anyone out there is looking to buy a mobile modem for use with Ubuntu Linux, I can recommend the E620.
My only concern with using my new device is that I want to be able to keep track of the amount of bandwidth I am using; I have a monthly contract with an allowance of 15GB per month and I would prefer it if I did not incurr any additional fees for exceeding my allowance. The shop assistant who dealt with me seemed to think 15GB was ample, I am not so sure. I have never previously had to worry about such things as I have always had unmetered access, but I believe I could quite easily burn through 15GB. So, I have decided to keep a log of my bandwidth usage. I am using vnStat to achieve this, a handy console based application for recording bandwidth usage for any given device. vnStat is fairly straightfoward to use and I have written some usage notes on my wiki for future reference.
P.S. Happy New Year!
§