Setting up the O2 E160 mobile broadband dongle on Snow Leopard

Despite all the cheery packaging and instructions insisting you just connect the dongle to your Mac, click Connect and away you go, when using the device with Snow Leopard, nothing of the sort happens. Fortunately, there’s ways to get around this:

First:

1. Right click on the MobileConnect application and choose “Show Contents”.
2. Navigate through the folders into Contents, then Resources.
3. Double-click the file Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg and run the the installer.

See below:

When you’re done
A few moments later, you’ll get a dialog that confirms that OS X has discovered two new network devices – HUAWEI Mobile and er, HUAWEI Mobile:

Next:

1. Select the Network Preferences button on the dialog shown above.
2. Select HUAWEI Mobile on the list on the left, if it isn’t already selected.
3. Enter *99# as the Telephone Number.
4. Enter o2bb as the Account Name.
5. Enter password as the Password.

You should have a screen similar to below:

Almost there:

1. Select “Advanced…”
2. Change Model: drop-down box to read “GPRS (GSM/3G)”
3. Enter m-bb.o2.co.uk as the APN.

Once your screen looks more or less like this, select OK to return to the previous screen.

You can now press Connect and the modem should spring into life and yes, connect.

If you’re on O2′s pay-and-go service, you’ll need to point your web browser to the snappy: http://mobilebroadbandaccess.o2.co.uk in order to set up your phone number and payment options.

Optional steps:

• Select “Show modem status in menu bar” from so you can connect and disconnect from the menu bar without having to open Network Preferences each time.
• Select the cog icon under the list on the left of network preferences, select “Rename Service…” and change it from “HUAWEI Mobile” into something more meaningful – like “O2″.