Exetel Mobile Wireless 3G and Android 2.2

[monarols]

Hello,

I am a complete noob with Android, and have just bought a Android tablet with an inbuilt sim slot. In windows, with my old tablet, I used the E169 modem in a USB port and connected OK with that. I am on "PLAN WI A" $5/month No free data.

I have put the sim card in the android tablet and set up an APN of "exetel1" I am getting the "Yes Optus" on the home screen, and 5 bar signal. I have tried with 3G and "Use only 2G", but have not managed to connect. The 3G icon is showing, with the "UP" arrow illuminating, and if I select 2G, the G icon is showing, with the "UP" arrow illuminating, but still cant access web pages. If I use the phone function, as expected, when I dial my home phone, I get the "This service is not available from your number, or words to that effect, LoL.

Will this sim work without the USB dongle or am I on the wrong plan? and need to change it, or any other android settings?

Edited to add I see a ! in a triangle at the top L/H of screen, if thats any help

Many thanks,

Chris Morgan

[thejeg]

Hello,

I am a complete noob with Android, and have just bought a Android tablet with an inbuilt sim slot. In windows, with my old tablet, I used the E169 modem in a USB port and connected OK with that. I am on "PLAN WI A" $5/month No free data.

I have put the sim card in the android tablet and set up an APN of "exetel1" I am getting the "Yes Optus" on the home screen, and 5 bar signal. I have tried with 3G and "Use only 2G", but have not managed to connect. The 3G icon is showing, with the "UP" arrow illuminating, and if I select 2G, the G icon is showing, with the "UP" arrow illuminating, but still cant access web pages. If I use the phone function, as expected, when I dial my home phone, I get the "This service is not available from your number, or words to that effect, LoL.

Will this sim work without the USB dongle or am I on the wrong plan? and need to change it, or any other android settings?

Edited to add I see a ! in a triangle at the top L/H of screen, if thats any help

Many thanks,

Chris Morgan

Hi Chris,

You Should be able to browse the internet using 'exetel1' as the APN.

I will contact you after 08:30 PM today in order to Check if you are using correct settings.

Regards,
Theje

[monarols]

Just an update to this, I have contacted the tech dept and they are going to look into it a bit more. Where it does seem odd is that Optus supports both the 900 and 2100 band from what I can gather. I can insert a telstra datapack sim, and the tablet connects with 3G with 3Telstra @ 2100 Mhz and data can be downloaded.

When I reinsert the Exetel/Optus sim card, according to the Status ((About device\Status) of the connection, it says:

Network: YES OPTUS
Mobile network Type: UMTS
Service State: In Service
Roaming: Not Roaming
Mobile network State: Connected

but still getting no data down/page not found

[samarium]

Does the tablet have the dialer app? If so try dialing *#*#info#*#* and you should get lots of low level interesting stuff to look at, which may or may not be useful.

[monarols]

Thanks for your reply Samarium. The tablet does have a dialler to make phone calls, but I guess you mean a "terminal" type dialler? i'll have to have a look on the market place and see if there is one to download. Cheers Chris

[samarium]

No, not a terminal, the telephone dialer app. There are a few other magic codes too that I don't recall at the moment.

[monarols]

Well I managed to get into the settings with the number u suggested. Some more detail:
Ping Test failed-Host unreachable
Data
Connected to exetel1, 19,50502, exetel1,,,,,,-1.*
Interface:PPP0
address: 220,233,60,101
gateway:
dns 10.11.12.13, 10.11.12.14
PPP sent 131 Pkts
PPP received 18 pkts

Preferred Network Type GSM auto (PRL)

3G flag showing.
GSM service: In service
GPRS Service: Connected
Network Type UTMS
Location: LAC=XXXXXXX CID=XXXXXXX

No word from exetel today.

[samarium]

The DNS settings look potentially dodgy.

Exetel settings used to be 220.233.0.*.

My android phone has DNS setup as the standard google DNS servers:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

I'm using a CAP plan. I'm not sure what my DNS servers were when I used WM-A, however I think they were still 8.8.8.8/4.4.

IIRC someone had a problem where ppp negotiation was failing and they ended up with dodgy DNS servers and things didn't work.

Seems to be a plethora of results from google.com/search?q=ppp+10.11.12.13

Maybe and interaction between your firmware and optus/exetel.

Maybe you need to override the DNS settings?

Can you ping by IP address, rather than name? If so then you have IP connectivity, and you have a DNS issue.

[samarium]

Maybe something to do with PPP option negotiation and the PPP server trying to force the client to accept ms-win options, or ms-dns options. If the PPP server is an Exetel device, then it seems like Exetel could so something.

[monarols]

Yeah, there is definatley something thats amiss somewhere. Havent heard back from exetel support as yet. I have just been down to the local city Vodafone shop and enquired about PAYG mobile 3g broadband. I got the sales guy to try his Voda data sim in my tablet, he put in the new APN and it connected straight away (3G), so will most likely take up thier offer. Thanks for your suggestions and help!

I was also looking at the exetel plan below, which includes voice:

WBP $15.00 $5.00 Zero 2 cents
per MB $0.25 per 30 seconds NONE NONE

But very reluctant to buy due to connection problems with my existing exetel/optus sim.

[thejeg]

Yeah, there is definatley something thats amiss somewhere. Havent heard back from exetel support as yet. I have just been down to the local city Vodafone shop and enquired about PAYG mobile 3g broadband. I got the sales guy to try his Voda data sim in my tablet, he put in the new APN and it connected straight away (3G), so will most likely take up thier offer. Thanks for your suggestions and help!

I was also looking at the exetel plan below, which includes voice:

WBP $15.00 $5.00 Zero 2 cents
per MB $0.25 per 30 seconds NONE NONE

But very reluctant to buy due to connection problems with my existing exetel/optus sim.

PM me your contact details enabling to get a clear picture of what you would like to have....

[Munka]

Hi, I wasn't sure where to put this, so feel free to move it.

Question, I have 3 android devices and I have tried three different browsers, also tried different user agent strings.
I visit many fora online but exetels forum is the only one that gives me a problem, that problem is this, using any of those browsers and agent strings a thread in this forum opens using a .3 (note the decimal) font and is unreadable without zooming right in and using a whole lot of scrolling, this on a 10.1 inch screen. Am I the only one getting rsi from reading this forum on an android device?