Page 10 Huawei E160e & E169 – Configuration (Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard) 11. From the “System Preferences” dialog window, select “Network” Figure 13 Level 5 Ph: 1300 139 550 sales@highway1.com.au Highway 1 (Aust) Pty. 10 William St Fax: 1300 794 469 www.highway1.com.au.
Introduction
- Is there maybe a current version of the Mobile Partner Software available which runns on the system Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard? I'm asking because I've bought a Apple MacBook Pro 17 (for the first time) just some days ago and would like to run my T-Mobile Web n' Walk Surfstick IV (Huawei E 176) - with a SimCard from the german TV-company Pro7.
- For details about copyright notice of the Mobile Partner, please see the Mobile Partner Written Offer.pdf. For details about copyright notice of the E5372Ts-32, please see the E5372Ts-32 GPL Written Offer.pdf. For details about copyright notice of the E5170s-22, please see the E5170s-22 GPL Written Offer.pdf.
I purchased an airtel 4G Dongle for my Macbook Pro running Mac OS X 10.11 aka El Capitan. Of course, I did not bother to read the System Requirements on the box which clearly state that this Dongle requires Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8 or 10.9. So, I took it home and after a 36 hour battle with Airtel to get my new data connection activated, I finally got to try out this Dongle - and it did not work! In fact, the Installer provided with the Dongle, an App named airtel itself did not work. On the last screen of the installation, it gives an error message similar to 'No software to install'!
I spent some 30-40 minutes looking at various posts on this issue and many of them pointed me to issues relating to the SIP (system integrity protection) feature on El Capitan. A Google search result even took me to a Huawei Support web site (consumer.huawei.com/en/support/products/downloads) that has a Download available titled 'The tool and guide of Hilink and Device AutoRun(for MAC 10.11). This installed for me, but did not work!Since I wasted some 45 minutes on this, I thought of sharing my experience in case it is useful to others. Especially, since airtel has notoriously bad Customer Support!
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Solomon Prakash on quora.com for pointing me in the right direction
Hardware/Software Specifications
- Macbook Pro 13-inch
- Mac OS X 10.11.1 (El Capitan)
- Airtel 4G Dongle (Huawei Model E3372h-607)
Important Notes
- There are several posts that talk about disabling El Capitan SIP (system integrity protection). Also called 'rootless'. It is NOT necessary to disable SIP
- There are 2-3 downloads for Model E3372 on the Huawei Support web site. Please ensure that you download the right one as listed here
- This procedure should work for other Huawei models. In fact, the supported product list from Huawei is shared here for your reference. So even if your dongle is some other model, it should be supported here. Do check before you go on!
- You can keep Airport turned Off (Wi-Fi Off) while using the USB dongle
Instructions
- Visit Huawei Support Site (consumer.huawei.com) and search for your Dongle model. I searched on 'E3372'.
- From the list of results, click the image of your dongle
- Click the Downloads tab
- Download 'Stick Mobile Partner(for MAC 10.11)
- Unzip the downloaded file
- You will get a file named 'MOBILE_CONNECT.zip'
- Unzip this file to see an Installer image 'MOBILE_CONNECT.ISO'
- Double-click this file and launch Mac Installer
- Complete installation
- Connect your 4g Dongle to the USB slot on your laptop
- Reboot your computer (recommended, but may not be necessary)
- Launch an Application named Mobile Partner from your Applications folder
- You will need to create a Profile first. In my experience, it did not allow me to type a profile name. So I clicked the Connect button and was prompted to create a profile
- Set APN to airtelgprs.com
- Give a name for the profile. I provided the name Airtel
- Ensure that access number is *99#
- Other settings are all default. A screen shot is shown below for reference
- Click OK and then Connect button and that should be all!