internet sharing won't turn on

Vonage is feeding you a line my friend. Internet sharing is never on by default on a Mac because it can be configured in a number of combinations. Unfortunately you want to do it in one of the most complicated ways possible, if possible.

Personally I am in serious doubt that you can do it. The easiest way to share internet on a Mac is when you share an Ethernet connection over AirPort with other devices; laptops, ipods, etc. It is very simple and straight forward to configure. One of the most difficult to configure correctly is an AirPort connection to other devices over Ethernet. What you want to do appears even more difficult.

Normally configuring the Mac is easy;
1. In Sys Prefs/Sharing highlight Internet Sharing (do not check the box)
2. Share your connection from: USB yada yada (from the dropdown menu)
3. Check the box for Internet Sharing
4. Answer any dialog boxes that pop up

The hard part is configuring the device to connect properly to the Ethernet connection provided by the Mac. Have a look at the link below where I describe how to configure a Mac to share a wi-fi connection over ethernet with an Xbox. What you want to do is similar. Unfortunately I do not think that Vonage will give you access to the Vonage adapter to give you the exact configuration that you need to make the connection.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10804983#10804983

However, the fact that your USB device is not appearing as an option in Sys Prefs/Sharing/Internet sharing is an additional problem!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

I am not familiar with this device, but Wikipedia says that it is a USB mobile broadband modem.

In Sys Prefs/Network what network services are listed in the list on the left side of the pane? Is this mobile broadband device one of the services listed?


Dah•veed

What is your interpretation of "internet sharing"?

The typical situation where internet sharing is used would be something
along the lines of having your machine connected to the internet via a
wired connection to your modem/router, then you setup a wireless connection
to another machine so that your machine and the second one connect to each
other via wireless and you share the internet to the second machine via your
wired connection.

Is this what you are trying to do?
Please provide some more details about exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Dave

Vonage is an internet telephone service. He is calling it a router, but I think that it is likely a Vonage phone adapter which communicates with the Vonage central call routing computer and routes his calls to a standard telephone connected to the Vonage phone adapter.

Hi. I have a similar case with internet sharing over USB mobile broadband with my MBP (mid2010) you see, when i tried internet sharing using my older iBook it does the job. But when I tried using it with the MBP all I can see in my iPhone and iTouch and iBook is a wi-fi signal at full bars but there's no "internet connection"
I would appreciate any helpful replies!

You should start your own post after you have done a search in this forum because this has been covered a number of times here.

Also, a profile that tells us about a Mac and it Mac OS X version will assist folks in wanting to assisting you.

I'm confused... you have a USB mobile internet connection. Why are you trying to connect
the router to the internet? Is there another computer involved?

Dave

my bad..appreciate the heads up. i'm glad that this thread is still visited...=) will start my own post later.. thanks! =)