# Requesting advice on EVDO



## blumstng (Nov 9, 2009)

I have a BSD computer set up with FreeBSD 7.0.

I have been asked if I can set this up with an EVDO card (not USB).  What I need to know is what cards are supported?  The PCCard slot hardware looks to be supported as I get messages in the dmesg for it.  The PC card connector uses the Ricoh chipset.  

I would like to use the Verizon PC5750 (which I have read might be the same as the Sprint PX500).  Does anyone have experience with this or know if this should work?  Or, know of an actual list of supported hardware for EVDO?  Otherwise, are their other card options I should look at that have support in FreeBSD?

Any advice is appreciated.


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## aragon (Nov 9, 2009)

Can you paste the dmesg or pciconf output?


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## blumstng (Nov 9, 2009)

I don't have the EVDO card yet.  Before I get locked into a service contract or anything like that, I would like to get an idea that it MIGHT work.  The only thing I have currently is the dmesg for the pcmcia controller.  Posted below if it's helpful:

```
cbb0: <RF5C475 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0xfbffe000-0xfbffefff irq 16 at device 1.
0 on pci2
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb0: [ITHREAD]
```


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## aragon (Nov 9, 2009)

Unfortunately it's not.  We need to see the dmesg output with the pcmcia card plugged in.

To be more precise, you need to get the vendor ID and device ID of the card.  That information can be gleaned from dmesg, pciconf, linux's lspci, and windows device manager - just to give you some options.


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## blumstng (Nov 9, 2009)

Thanks for the information so far...

Well, do you know of any way to find out what EVDO cards are supported in FreeBSD 7.0?  I guess that's really the information I need.  I don't want to get locked into a multi-year contract if I can't even use EVDO on BSD or if the cards that are supported by the provider are not supported in BSD.


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## aragon (Nov 9, 2009)

The only trace of noted EV-DO support is in usba(4), but you need to keep in mind that computer peripherals are frequently rebranded countless times into the products you see on store shelves, especially so for 3G devices.  There's a chance the EVDO card you're looking at is just running a pretty standard prolific (uplcom(4)) serial controller, or another popular controller that is supported, but you won't find any documentation that it is supported under the text that you see printed on its pretty branding.  The vendor ID and device ID will allow you to unwrap the marketing veil and see what it really is.


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