WiMAX (Intel 6250) Troubles with Fedora 15

[hokousha]

I have Fedora 15 (Linux pod 2.6.40-4.fc15.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Jul 29 18:46:53 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux) installed fresh on a Lenovo Thinkpad with built-in WiFi and WiMAX support via an Intel 6250 controller. The controller is enabled in the BIOS, and the firmware is installed. WiFi access points appear in the Network Manager menu, but the WiMAX device appears to be down. I wondered if anyone might have some hints?

The device appears to come up at boot:

[root@pod ~]# dmesg | egrep -i '(wmx|wimax)'
[ 2.523224] usb 2-1.5: Product: Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250
[ 25.703300] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 AGN, REV=0x84
[ 26.096767] i2400m_usb 2-1.5:1.0: WiMAX interface wmx0 (00:1d:e1:45:77:0e) ready
[ 34.171369] NetworkManager[814]: <info> found WiMAX radio killswitch rfkill1 (at /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.5/2-1.5:1.0/rfkill/rfkill1) (driver i2400m_usb)

but is then immediately disabled for some reason:

[ 34.180984] NetworkManager[814]: <info> WiMAX disabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file

By the time I get a shell prompt it is apparently turned off at both the hardware and software layers:

[root@pod ~]# wimaxll -i wmx0 rfkill query
rfkill status is 0x0 (HW off SW off)

There does not seem to be a script for the interface in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, so a simple

[root@pod ~]# ifup wmx0

does not work. What looks like the correct command to bring up the interface via wimaxll also fails with some particularly un-helpful errors:

[root@pod network-scripts]# wimaxll -i wmx0 rfkill on
E: RFKILL: operation failed: -84
E: rfkill failed: -84 (Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character)
E: rfkill: failed: Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character

Does anyone have hints for (a) how to bring up the hardware, (b) how to bring up the software layer, (c) what kind of diagnostics/scanning for access points I can do from there? We do have WiMAX service available here, but I don't want to start paying them money until everything is squared away on my side.

Thanks for any pointers, and of course, if any additional information would be helpful, I'd be happy to provide it.

[David Batson]

Not sure. I have the same Intel 6250, but without WIMAX. The WiFi works fine with the Intel Firmware from the rpmfusion repositories. For my cellular connection (a Sierra Wireless 890 ExpressCard), I had to run nm-connection-editor from terminal to set it up and get it to work.

http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/