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I received my Android tab today and it doesn't have inbuilt 3G data. I have a 3G modem (ZTE MF 180) and it didn't work when I connect it. It's a chinese tab and supported-list doesn't contain my modem model. But I think Android should be able to take the device as a generic modem and communicate with my data carrier. I don't need fancy stuff like SMS or phonebook - just like the modem support on Ubuntu.

I'm just few hours old in Android world so any help is greatly appreciated.

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up vote 4 down vote accepted

I can see two major problems with this.

  1. Android 2.2 doesn't support USB host mode out-of-the-box. This means any external USB peripherals like your modem are not recognized by the Android device. Although some successful attempts were made to shoehorn this functionality into several handsets, the process is not easy to say the least. It's only been developed for a few phones so far, and would take quite an effort to port to your specific tablet. Depending on the target device's kernel's availability of source code, this may not even be possible at all.

  2. Even if USB host is achieved, the Android drivers for the modem would need to be obtained. A quick Google search doesn't return anything useful, which means the drivers would need to be written from scratch. Without the aid of the manufacturer, this may prove to be an impossible task for a hobbyist developer.

Unfortunately, it looks like you are stuck with using your tab's built-in WiFi for data connectivity.

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Thanks. I checked the supporting list of modems. It doesn't even list a GSM modem. CDMA and WCDMA. Unfortunately I have to much awesomeness of Android. Thanks a LOT for your support. –  Ayesh K Jan 5 '12 at 16:41

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