Got a Mac? If so, you’re probably also running OS X Snow Leopard, which is bad news if you fancy a bit of mobile broadband. We’ve uncovered bugs that stop a range of USB dongles working with Apple’s latest OS. Read on, but be warned, it’s not pretty.
Update: Vodafone has supplied us with a link to the software download which it says will fix your dongle for Snow Leopard action. You can get it here.
It’s been just over two months since OS X Snow Leopard was released, accompanied by howls of anguish from users packing a mobile broadband dongle. It seems the majority of manufacturers neglected to update their software, leaving customers in the lurch, and without a connection.
3 Huawei E169G
We first became aware of our 3 Huawei E169G dongle not working a few days after we installed OS X Snow Leopard. We also tried a T-Mobile Web’N'Walk Stick III – a rebranded Huawei E170, but to no avail, along with our T Mobile Mobile Broadband USB Stick 530. O2′s Huawei E160 model did not work either. It’s fair to say the problem is not isolated.
Some quick searches showed a rafts of forum posts pointing towards similar compatibility issues, yet two months on plugging in a Huawei dongle to a Mac running Snow Leopard yields error messages and sad faces all round. We’ve chased down some answers from Huawei, as well as every mobile network, to ask what they are doing about the problem, but the news was as disappointing as the dongles.
T Mobile Web n Walk Stick III
T-Mobile refused to comment when we asked why a service that’s paid for, and advertised as working with Macs, simply doesn’t.
Interestingly, a page on T-Mobile’s own support site states: “If you use the Mobile Broadband USB Stick 120 or USB Stick 620, you should not use this with MAC OS X 1.6 (Snow Leopard). It is currently incompatible and can cause serious issues with system stability.”
The site goes on to advise that, “If you need to continue to use your Mobile Broadband we’d recommend you stick with your current operating system, just in case there are any compatibility issues with Snow Leopard.”
Hardly helpful advice, and unlikely to help anyone who’s bought a new Mac, since they all come running OS X Snow Leopard.
When we got in touch with 3 it claimed that all its dongles worked with Snow Leopard, although when we tested a E169G model, it refused to load when plugged it into our Snow Leopard-toting MacBook.
O2 Huawei E160
O2 gave us a better response, acknowledging Snow Leopard causes problems with its Huawei dongles, but when we asked for a solution, we were slapped with a three page PDF setting out a complicated work-around. It’s a scary document, and not for the faint hearted.
Vodafone also said it was aware of the problem and that an update was available through its support pages to get its dongles working. An insider also told us that the network, “…will be looking to get OS X Snow Leopard working when its new range launches.”
However, Orange is way out ahead, saying it knew of the problems surrounding Huawei dongles and OS X Snow Leopard. In a statement released to us, a spokesman for the network said. “We are aware of the issue, and have developed our own connection manager to solve it. This software will work with any of the dongles that Orange ranges, and supports Mac OS 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Win XP,Vista and 7.”
But that’s not all. Orange has gone over and above the call of duty, but packing features to let you “keep track of data usage, and even configure alerts that trigger warning messages when [you] have used specified amounts of data.”
T Mobile Stick 530
It appears Orange is the only network tackling OS X Snow Leopard head on, and while the new software is set to launch on 17 November, the network told us customers experiencing problems can get hold of it early by calling Orange customer services.
And what about Huawei? It’s the company behind this dongle debacle after all, but failed to reply to our emails and did not return our calls.
Have you had any issues with your mobile broadband dongle? Tell us in the comments section below, giving us the model name and manufacturer, as well as the network you’re using, and we’ll take your complaints straight to the top.
