The Huawei E1750 mobile broadband dongle has been designed for high speed internet access on the go. It is an elegantly structured USB stick with dimensions of 71mm x 26mm x 11mm. 3 Mobile offers this USB modem with their pay as you go or pay monthly mobile broadband deals.
Using the Huawei E1750 dongle is very simple. You’ll have to insert the 3G SIM card from 3 Mobile into it, first. This USB stick is a plug and play device, which just needs to be plugged into the USB port of your desktop computer or laptop. Installation of required software will start-up automatically, the first time you plug it into your computer. The next time you want to get online, you simply have to fit it into the USB port and it will pop up a window for enabling connecting to the internet.
This USB modem supports a variety of network standards – GPRS, GSM, UMTS, EDGE and HSDPA. It is capable of offering download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5.76Mbps. On 3’s network you’ll most probably get a maximum of 3.6Mbps for downlinks. The system requirements for using the 3 Mobile Huawei E1750 USB modem are – Windows 2000 or Windows XP or Windows Vista in case of Windows machines and MAC OS X in case of Macs. You might need to get a software upgrade for the modem in order to make it compatible with Windows 7.
One Response to “3 Mobile Huawei E1750 USB Modem”hi i have E1750 but with out program pleas send it 4 me>>>for windows 7 ultimate
So I have this 4G+/LTE modem - Huawei E3372, also known as Megafon M150-2 - which is exactly the variation I got.
So I have this 4G+/LTE modem - Huawei E3372, also known as Megafon M150-2 - which is exactly the variation I got. Eventually I got sick of its connection management software for Mac OS (the one that comes from Megafon), so I started looking for a way to be able to connect to the internet on Mac OS. OS Supported: Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS. Install Disc/User Manual: No: An automatic installation wizard is built into the USB device. USB: USB2.0 (High Speed) Expandable Card Slot: Supports up to 4GB Micro-SD (Micro SD card not included) Extend Port: 1 x SIM card slot. 1 x TF card slot. What comes in the package: 1 x Huawei E1750 HSPA.
Eventually I got sick of its connection management software for Mac OS (the one that comes from Megafon), so I started looking for a way to be able to connect to the internet on Mac OS without it.
The modem itself is rather a great piece of hardware.
Coming in a form-factor of a USB-stick, it is capable of maintaining quite a high-speed internet connection, and apparently it supports all the international LTE standards because I was using it in several countries without problems.
On top of that it has slots for external antennas and even a slot for microSD card (don’t know what to do with it):
Note that it requires full-sized SIM-cards.
I bought it several years ago in Moscow at some Megafon selling point. Back then it cost me just ~700 RUB (10-20 USD?). The reason for such a low price is usually that modems are locked to a particular operator, but in my case surprisingly that wasn’t the case.
If memory serves me well, I did not perform any unlocking operations, and it just works fine with SIM-cards from other operators than Megafon. I must say, however, I never tried it with any other russian operators - the only SIM-cards I was using it with were the ones from norwegian operators (Telia and Phonero).
And it is available for purchase even today:
- from the very same Megafon, although it is likely to be a locked version (which can be unlocked);
- an unlocked version on Amazon.
But what is wrong with the Megafon software? Well, while it does its job, after some time it started to irritate me for the following reasons:
- It installs god knows what to your system, while the only thing you really need is just a modem driver;
- In addition to the main application it requires its service to run in the background, otherwise it won’t even start discovering the modem;
- It sends some data to different Megafon hosts. I would understand if it was for checking the updates, but why different hosts then? I don’t feel like having yet another spyware in my system;
- File Activity tool from Instruments shows some enormous files access by the application and/or service. What could be the purpose of such an activity, I wonder?
So I started looking for a way to avoid using the Megafon software.
The first clue was the fact that the modem works just fine with routers:
There is no need to install any Megafon software on the router for it to be able to connect to the internet via the modem, is there? So why the need in such a software on Mac OS?
After some research I got the following steps (mostly from this great topic at 4PDA and also this SuperUser answer):
- Install the driver for Mac OS for the initial modem discovery;
- Put the modem into a mode in which it will be discovered by Mac OS as a dial-up modem;
- Add a new network service using the modem.
Driver for Mac OS
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve spent quite a some time looking for a driver. Surely, I could use the one installed together with the Megafon software, but there is no way to install only the driver, and I wanted to have a “clean” set-up procedure.
Most of links I found on the internet were dead. Of course I tried looking at the official Huawei’s website, but didn’t succeed there either.
But then in a comment section at some blog I did find a link to the working driver. And it was hosted on the official Huawei’s website! I don’t know how does one find it on his own, but here’s the link.
You don’t have to install everything, the only thing you need from this package is the driver (MobileConnectDriver.pkg):
I will be hosting a copy just in case the official link dies like the rest at some point. Note that this is a driver for Mac OS Mojave, scroll to bottom for the Catalina version.
After the installation you should get the following thing installed:
Check if the modem is discovered in the system:
Switching to dial-up mode
Huawei Modem
I’m sure that it’s called something else and not the “dial-up mode”, but I haven’t found the correct name for it.
So, you’ve got your modem discovered by the system. Connect to it via screen:
Huawei E1750 For Mac Osx
And try to communicate with it using AT-commands. First I tried to collect some information about the device (first line in each group is the command, the following lines are the response):
Okay, and here’s the command to switch the modem into dial-up mode:
Connecting to the internet on Mac OS
The only thing left is to create a new network service in Mac OS.
Create a new service using HUAWEIMobile- interface:
Huawei Lte Usb Modem E173
Set the good old mobile dial number *99#:
And you’re connected to the internet without any additional software, using only the native Mac OS tools:
As it was pointed out in comments, the driver stopped working on Mac OS Catalina. Most likely this is because it was x32, and Catalina requires x64, so an x64 version of driver is required. That actually was one of the reasons why I haven’t upgraded to Catalina.
Fortunatelly, such version exists, and apparently has been available since at least 30.10.2019. An awesome chap shared a link on 4PDA forum. I’ll host a copy here too.
Huawei E1750 Mac Os X
I’ve tested it on Catalina, and it works fine.