By default, Huawei E220 can only support up to 3.6Mbps speed. In Malaysia, 3.6Mbps is the top speed that 3.5G broadband users can get. But the truth is, it is just a fantasy. No one will get that speed.
By default, Huawei E220 only can handles 3.6Mbps connection
I even asked Celcom technician to do speedtest at place. Do you want to know how much speed that he got? Only 1.2Mbps. And the test was done in the morning (at low peak time). And when I asked why he only got 1.2Mbps and not 3.6Mbps or even 2Mbps? Here is what he replied,
“This is because our server can’t support so many users. If there are many users use the Internet at one time, the slowness will happen.”
Duh…what a very frustrating answer. Why don’t you guys (Celcom) use our money to upgrade the server? It is better than hearing our complaints every minutes and seconds.
But this “hack” can make it to 7.2Mbps
Ok, back to the article. How you can “hack” your Huawei E220 USB modem to make it supports up to 7.2Mbps speed? By default, Huawei E220 will only can operates at 3.6Mbps. But by doing this “hack” you can make it to operate at 7.2Mbps.
Before we can proceed to “hack” our Huawei E220 usb modem, I must give some advices first. Please don’t do this “hack” if,
- your device is still under contract or warranty
- you don’t want to get into troubles if something goes wrong
- you don’t want to make your Huawei E220 supports 7.2Mbps speed
Disclaimer: I will not responsible on anything you do or happen to your Huawei E220 USB Modem.
Now, to do the “hack” is really simple. First what you need to do is to backup all files in the Huawei E220 USB modem to your computer. I forgot to copy the files and I have lost everything. So my advice, make a backup all the files into your computer hard drive. DON’T do the same mistake like I did.
Now go to Mobile Connected website and download firmware 11.117.09.00.00. The download link is at the end of the article. Download it and run the update file. Follow the screen and make sure to tick “Forced Download”.
The download process will take awhile and you will see the green light blinking rapidly. Once the “hack” is done, you will see your connection is able to support up to 7.2Mbps like the image I put in this article.
Again, in Malaysia, we are provided with 3.6Mbps only. This 7.2Mbps is only available in UK, US and other first and second world countries. So, even though you do this “hack”, it doesn’t mean you will get faster broadband connection.
Update the Dashboard
But if you want to upgrade the dashboard application (Mobile Connect), you can do so by downloading the update from Huawei download page. Choose the latest version (the latest date it get published). After the download is finished, open the archive and run the file.
Mobile Partner in action
This new version is using Huawei Partner and not Mobile Connect anymore. I don’t know why they choose Mobile Parner. For me, Mobile Connect is much easier to use and give more statistics details. Or maybe they decided to use Mobile Partner because it is faster to locate what services available around you. That is the only improvement I see after the “hack” is done.
But if you found other improvements in this latest firmware, please drop it into the comment form below. So I can check from my end too.
Edit: Here is the screenshot taken while I was downloading files using Internet Download Manager.
