Dell 5520 WWAN UMTS HSDPA MiniPCI Card

When T-Mobile decided to give away MultiSIM cards for free, I decided to get one and put it to use in my new Dell XPS 1530.

I ordered the MultiSIM and got myself a Dell 5520 WWAN card from ebay.co.uk (for approx 70 Euros). Today it arrived and I decided to give it a try.

Things that might be of interest to potential customers:

The DELL 5520 is a rebrandet Novatel Expedite EU860D, here's part of the Linux driver:

   { USB_DEVICE(DELL_VENDOR_ID, 0×8136) },    /* Dell Wireless HSDPA 5520 == Novatel Expedite EU860D /


{ USB_DEVICE(DELL_VENDOR_ID, 0&#215;8137) },    /</strong> Dell Wireless <span class="caps">HSDPA</span> 5520 <strong>/<br />
{ USB_DEVICE(DELL_VENDOR_ID, 0&#215;8138) },    /</strong> Dell Wireless <span class="caps">HSDPA</span> 5520 <span class="caps">XPS</span>-Laptop(<span class="caps">DIESE</span> <span class="caps">ZEILE</span> HINZUF√É≈ìGEN)*/</pre><br />




The card currently only does HDSDPA up to 3,6 Mbit/s. Other rebranded cards support up to 7,2 MBit/s using the same hardware. Currently nobody that I know of was successfull in flashing the 7,2 mbit/s firmware to the Dell card


One thing that really impressed me is that the card actually features a GPS receiver! Simply unlock it using a simple registry hack:













Install the driver from the Dell Homepage (32 bit driver works fine on vista 64 bit)


go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Novatel Wireless\NextGenCommon


change "GPSHWStatus"; from 0 to 1


reboot






I was too lazy to actually go outside where I'd have GPS reception, but apparently it works :D
Here are some pics:

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