Using the Franklin U600 Sprint modem on Ubuntu 12.04

Ubuntu 12.04 seems to have support for the Franklin U600 Sprint modem right out of the box. Instead of configuring udev rules to auto-detect the device by issuing a modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1fac product=0x0151 command, Ubuntu 12.04 seems to detect this device automatically using the cdc_acm module:

$ usb-devices

T:  Bus=01 Lev=03 Prnt=11 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#= 12 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=02(commc) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=1fac ProdID=0151 Rev=00.00
S:  Manufacturer=Franklin Wireless Corp.
S:  Product=U600 EVDO Modem 
C:  #Ifs= 6 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=02(commc) Sub=02 Prot=01 Driver=cdc_acm
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=cdc_acm
I:  If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 3 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 4 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 5 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)

Lately, I've noticed that sometimes the device fails to be auto-detected after removing it. One thing that appears to work is to remove the module before trying again. One workaround is to remove the module yourself after physically taking out the USB device:

$ sudo rmmod cdc_acm

The cdc_acm driver is used only for 3G access (Qualcomm QSC6085 chipset). The U600 comes with a Beceem (now Broadcom) chipset and Sprint appears to have released a reference guide with patches for Linux 2.6. Instructions for setting up the 4G driver and WiMax certs are also included for Franklin U250, U300, and U600.

You may also need to restart modem-manager because of this bug too: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ppp/+bug/869954
http://osdir.com/ml/networkmanager-list/2010-07/msg00071.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2012-August/msg00125.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2012-February/msg00097.html