This is how to get Etisalat USB modem working on Fedora 11.

“Etisalat Masr” new USB modem that supports HSDPA is based on Huawei E1550 USB Flip-Flop stick, so you need to get usb_modeswitch first to be able to switch the device from being a storage usb device to USB modem mode and this can be done easily by:

yum install usb_modeswitch

Then you need to add the following to the configuration file /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf  (add the following in the end of the file)

# Huawei E1550
DefaultVendor = 0x12d1
DefaultProduct = 0x1446
MessageEndpoint = 0x01
MessageContent = "55534243000000000000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000"

I got those information by sniffing USB on windows and you don’t have to do that because probably your MessageContent is the same as mine if the device is the same as mine and you can check if things are working or not by running

lsusb

and you will see a line like that

 ID 12d1:1446 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

and then run

usb_modeswitch

you should see output like

* usb_modeswitch: tool for controlling "flip flop" mode USB devices
* Version 0.9.6 (C) Josua Dietze 2009
* Works with libusb 0.1.12 and probably other versions

Looking for default devices
Found default devices (1)
Prepare switching, accessing latest device
Looking for active default driver to detach it
OK, driver found ("usb-storage")
OK, Driver "usb-storage" successfully detached
Setting up communication with device
Trying to send the message
OK, message successfully sent.
-> See /proc/bus/usb/devices (or call lsusb) for changes. Bye

and please note that usb_modeswitch MUST be run as root, otherwise you will get an error.

if you got a message like the previous one then you can use the device directly from NetworkManager and you can check if the device has switched or not from the output of lsusb, it should be something like that now:

ID 12d1:1001 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E620 USB Modem

Have Fun