Strange are the ways modern computers work.
I upgraded my mobile broadband about a month ago. I got a Saunalahti Nopsa (unlimited speed, unlimited data) subscription with a ZTE MF688 USB modem. I installed it to my home MacBook without any problems. Last weekend I was traveling with my work laptop (MacBook Pro), and I thought I would do the same thing, just plug in the stick and let it install the drivers and software. Well, NOT SO SIMPLE! I had plugged in the ZTE to an Edimax 3G-WLAN router, and that had most likely erased the flash drive on the stick. After Googling and calling Saunalahti helpdesk I found out that the software (*) can be downloaded from Elisa’s web site. I thought the problem was solved. Well, NOT SO SIMPLE! Elisa’s “Mobiililaajakaista” -installer for Mac OS X didn’t seem to have drivers for ZTE, only Huawei-something.
Then I went to an Elisa Shop to physically swap the stick to a brand new one, to stop the hassle. I got a new one without too much explaining. I just told it didn’t work. Good service. Plugged in the new ZTE. Now the flash drive mounted and I got my hands on a software that had the drivers for this ZTE stick. The main software installed, then it started the “setup assistant” which sets all the modem stuff etc. Well, NOT SO SIMPLE. I hit the “error 5370”. Luckily with that keyword it was possible to Google for a solution. The problem seems to be with that I have my home directory protected with FileVault?! At least some blogs claim so. That explains the difference between my home MacBook (no FileVault) and my MacBook Pro (yes FileVault). The solution is to run the setup assistant as ‘root’:
cd /Applications/Elisa/Mobiililaajakaista opastettu asennus.app/Contents/MacOS
sudo MobileManager\ Setup\ Assistant
After that, I could finally enjoy the mobile broadband. It only took something like half a day for all of this including driving back and forth to an Elisa Shop.
This software seems to be widely used by other operators too so the instructions apply to them as well. Just find the “MobileManager Setup Assistant” from
somewhere under the /Applications -folder. It may be under /Applications/Elisa, /Applications/3Connect, etc. depending on your operator.
(*) The software from Elisa is actually not the same as on the ZTE flash drive, where there’s a Saunalahti version, which has more features. Here’s the Saunalahti version from the USB stick in case you can’t find it anywhere else.
