Telstra BigPond 4G – Bypassing Device Registration

If you use a Telstra 4G Mobile Broadband dongle, you might occasionally have issues with it, as I have found out from time to time.  Something seems to corrupt the local settings forcing a complete uninstall and reinstall of the device driver(s) and Mobile Broadband Manager software.

When re-installing, when the Mobile Broadband Manager (MBM) loads initially after the installation it prompts you to register the device.  My experience this morning was that the registration screen kept loading “beyond” the page which required you to enter your BigPond credentials, i.e. the fields were rendered and then you were wept to a “Please wait” screen which times out eventually.

I was rather ticked off (to say the least), and tried a bunch of ways around it, including patching Internet Explorer.  Nothing worked, and I couldn’t register my device or access the Internet.  Then, on a separate (Internet accessible) computer, I spied the following on Whirlpool:

“Well for future reference if you hold down shift when opening the options it’ll give you a few extra ‘things’ one of which is a check box that tells it the device has already been registered. Just tick that, save and away you go.”

Brilliant – and it works!  Fire up MTM and as you click to open the options menu, hold down the shift key.  On this dialog, go to the Diagnosis tab and check the “Signup has been completed for this device” option:

Make sure you enter your username and password on the Account tab if you haven’t already done so.  Now MTM will connect and not insist that you register the device first.  Problem solved.

By the looks of this tab, there’s some excellent additional options too. I wouldn’t advise that you mess with any of the other settings unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing!