The latest NetworkManager has "mobile broadband". I don't know what devices this is meant to include, but I have two Nokia phones (one of them GPRS/EDGE, the other 3G) and it doesn't work with either.

Both provide a device /dev/ttyACM0 (or ttyACM1, etc) via the kernel module cdc_acm. This is a standard modem device - to connect to the Internet you just use pppd/wvdial/chat etc. (I have a friend with a Samba75 modem that requires an extra line to be sent in the chat script to select the correct APN (access point) - but with the Nokia phones, that setting is already on the phone so nothing extra is needed). I just set it up in system-config-network as a modem device and "it just works".

NetworkManager, though, doesn't appear to have any facility to use the device. When I go into "mobile broadband" and click "Add", nothing happens. If I select "controlled by NetworkManager" in system-config-network it doesn't show up anywhere. When I go online (with /sbin/ifup ppp0) NetworkManager doesn't know I'm connected. In short, NM seems to have no ability to handle this kind of device - which leads to frustration, as then Firefox, Pidgin etc. think I'm offline, etc.

There's likely to be a few hundred million or so of these phones in existence, so better NM support would be much appreciated! Thanks for the hard work.

Versions:

NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.x86_64
NetworkManager-gnome-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.x86_64