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How To Use Sim Cards On A Laptop

sim card and a laptop

Have you ever wished your laptop acted — well, more like your phone, especially when it comes to data connections? While you can still hop on the internet outside the home using your phone as a hotspot, the setup process is annoying sometimes.

This is one of the most searched keywords online about how to make use of your sim on your laptop. Most laptops nowadays come with a sim slot space and some people don’t even know it or recognize it.

It has been asked on Quora Nairaland and searched on google with no straightforward or let us say reasonable answer.

I once asked a friend what that space (sim space on his laptop) is made for he was like “I don’t know”. I know we have different brands of laptops with different configurations and all that, which might make it difficult to get a good answer or solution to you using your sim to browse or send a text message from your computer.

Okay, let us be clear here. If you’ve not used a computer with a sim slot space available you won’t understand what this article is all about. New models of laptops available now come with a 4g mobile band in them. This means you don’t need to look for a modem or a router, wifi, and the rest to browse your favorite website to do some work online. All you need to do is just a simple click and you are connected.

I want to make this article brief and simple so you understand and follow the procedures correctly on how to use sim cards on your laptop.

Table of Contents

Things you need to check out

These are things you need to check out to be sure your computer is fully equipped with this feature before proceeding.

Check if you have a space available for sim placement 

  1. To check if your computer has space for sim card placement, you need to check on the two sides of your computer, you will normally see a logo that has the shape of a sim card attached to it. Or remove your laptop battery, and check the space between your laptop body and battery. Usually, most brands do put sim card space there, I have used a dell 3330 latitude and Toshiba Tecra m10 which has sim card space.sim card space on my toshiba tecra m10
  2. Check information online you can do this by googling or checking your laptop manual if it has any information about how to use sim cards on it.
  3. Check your device manager ( Go to my pc or file manager, right-click on this PC, click on properties, then device manager). If you have any pre-installed driver for sim card support it is usually written this way mobile broadband. If you see the driver be rested assured you are 80% ready to use your laptop to browse the net. If you don’t see it but you passed check 1 which is checking for sim slot space not to worry I will soon get there on how to fix this.
Toshiba mobile broadband

4. Check if your mobile broadband is intact

Some brands like dell do sell their computers with no mobile broadband modules. The dell latitude 3330 does not come with a broadband module pre-installed in it, you need to get one for yourself. Like the Toshiba Tecra m10 which comes with it pre-installed. For you to be able to check if it comes with it, you can contact your manufacturer or simply go to BIOS setup if you are using a Dell computer.

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I don’t know about the rest but it should be displayed there. After booting to bios setup enter your password you will see something like “system information“. After you must have clicked on it you will see something like the picture below. As you can see my cellular device is missing.

dell 3330 bios information

If you have something similar to what I have in the picture above then it is time to get a broadband module. To do this, you will need to search stores around you or go online to amazon Aliexpress, or Jumia and search for it.

Remember that different brands have different module types. I searched online on Jumia for a dell 3330 mobile broadband module which was around 25.81 dollars. These modules are quite expensive.

How to set up mobile broadband manager

After you must have passed all those checks above, you need to download a brand mobile broadband manager. It actually looks like the image below, but this is for Toshiba mobile broadband manager. If you are using dell and the rest, a simple search on google and you are on your way to downloading your broadband manager.

Everything on JUMIA
toshiba broadband manager
dell broadband manager

As you can see, the image looks alike, but with different brands on it.

If you are using a dell computer you can search here. Make sure you input your computer information correctly before downloading. The link provides mobile broadband and the driver set up.

If you are using other brands like Toshiba, hp, and the rest. You just need to google brand broadband device driver download for example (Toshiba Tecra m10 broadband device driver) and also Ericson 3g driver, download them and install them. The driver will appear on your device manager, open your broadband manager and connect.

Some issues with the mobile broadband managers and solutions

In case you encounter any problem, click on the help button in the mobile broadband application. It has some solutions to some issues you may encounter

What I like about mobile broadband manager

  1. It is easier to use compared to a modem which you have to carry about to connect
  2. You can text with it and it’s very easy to do.
  3. You don’t need to set it over and over again setting are saved.

What I don’t like about mobile broadband manager

  1. You can’t receive or make calls with it.

If you have a better way or alternative you used to set up your computer mobile broadband. You can share with us, we would love to hear from you.

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