Hack of the day: making MF 622 (Claro 3G modem) work on Mac, without the CD

I was set to make my ZTE MF622 modem (Claro 3G Internet plan) with my Mac. The supplied CD has the Mac driver/application, but I did not have the CD around this time.

After a lot of unfruitful search for Mac drivers for this modem, I stumbled with MF626 drivers in the Australian site of ZTE manufacturer: http://www.zte.com.au/main/zte-downloads.htm. There is no driver for MF622 in there, but there was a MF626 driver. 626 is "near" 622, and I had a vague notion that both modems have the same USB ID, so they could be driven by the same application.

It was a triple leap of faith: an application tailored not for my telecom and not for my modem, and coming from Australia (sorry, I could not resist to joke :) No better options at hand, I tried it, configuring a Claro account. It worked! The only "special" detail is that APN must be configured to bandalarga.claro.com.br. Without that, it does not work.

This APN thing seems to be the only roadblock to configure the GSM modem directly on System Preferences. Setting APN translates to a simple AT command to the modem, but in order to insert an AT command in Mac, I'd probably need to create a new modem profile... something to be played with in a rainy Sunday.

I will keep this Telstra package in a safe storage for sure. The page seems to be maintained, so there will likely be updates when Slow Leopard is released.