UMTS is fast mobile broadband. It is faster than GSM, GPRS, EDGE and almost as fast as HSDPA. For more information on what it is, see wikipedia's article.

This describes an example how to surf via UMTS under Linux. The example has been done on 2011-08-12 in Germany with the otelo SurfStick in the Vodaphone network on openSUSE 11.4.. It may work same or similar with another hardware, distribution, phone network or country. Here are the steps I took after buying:

Hardware

To find out if you have a UMTS modem and your kernel recognizes it, use the command

hwinfo --modem --short

Activate it

Due to Vodaphone requirements I had to hand out my ID card to the shop assistant and she activated the surf stick for me.

Connect

log in to SUSE using Gnome
Install Networkmanager

yast -i NetworkManager

start NetworkManager

NetworkManager

click on NetworkManager -> New GSM connection -> Germany -> my provider is not listed here -> APN is event.otelo.de
log out and back in again using Gnome
attach your USB device Surf Stick
when required, enter your pin
click on NetworkManager -> otelo connection
start firefox, surf to www.linuxintro.org
you are redirected to a page where you can choose which plan you want to use (e.g. 4 days internet for 9.99 €)
select a plan

Test it

you are now connected to the internet:

duffman:~ # ping www.heise.de
PING www.heise.de (193.99.144.85) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from www.heise.de (193.99.144.85): icmp_req=1 ttl=244 time=381 ms
64 bytes from www.heise.de (193.99.144.85): icmp_req=2 ttl=244 time=300 ms
^C
--- www.heise.de ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 2 received, 33% packet loss, time 2000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 300.410/340.827/381.245/40.421 ms
duffman:~ # ip a s
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 brd 127.255.255.255 scope host lo
    inet 127.0.0.2/8 brd 127.255.255.255 scope host secondary lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:22:19:f7:3c:bb brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:22:fb:89:57:06 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: ppp0: <POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST,NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN qlen 3
    link/ppp 
    inet 10.249.178.10 peer 10.64.64.64/32 scope global ppp0
duffman:~ # route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
10.64.64.64     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 ppp0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
0.0.0.0         10.64.64.64     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 ppp0
duffman:~ #

Know

You can now use

GSM
GPRS
EDGE
UMTS
HSDPA

networks.

List of APNs

When using the software umtsmon to connect, or if your provider is not a choice under Networkmanager, you will need to know your provider's APN. Find them below. An example how to enter them can be found here.

Germany

D1: internet.t-mobile.de
D2, otelo/Vodaphone: event.otelo.de
E2, Fonic/O2: pinternet.interkom.de

SDB:Connect to the internet via an UMTS connection

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