LinuxQuestions.org - ifconfig ppp0 hw ppp....

Hey,
I'm trying to "up" my Alcatel SpeedTouch USB modem manually (with ifconfig). At the moment, I have a program that does it, but I need to be able to do it manually (because program is used for loading a driver, which I will no longer need. I will use the one compiled into my kernel.). At the moment, running:
# ifconfig ppp0
gives me this output:

Code:

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol

          inet addr:x.x.x.x  P-t-P:x.x.x.x  Mask:255.255.255.255

          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:416 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:397 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3

          RX bytes:253765 (247.8 Kb)  TX bytes:62621 (61.1 Kb)

Now, I need to do that without the program. If I run:
# ifconfig ppp0 up
without running the program, I get something like:
ppp0: unknown interface
So, I figured I have to specify what ppp0 is, somehow...
# ifconfig ppp0 hw ppp
But that gives out something like:
hw address type `ppp' has no handler to set address. failed.
SSH_AGENT_PID=1657: obscure host
ifconfig: `--help' gives usage information.
I don't know the device's hardware address, but I should be able to figure it out, if I need to. Since it's a USB device, should I give the address of the USB hub? So anyway, I tryed this, not expecting it to work, just to see what happens:
ifconfig ppp0 hw ppp 0
And that just gives the same 1st line as before:
hw address type `ppp' has no handler to set address. failed.

To be honest, I'm not so sure what I'm doing. I've only ever used ifconfig before, for the occasional "eth0 up" etc. But if anyone knows what I have to do, please help me out =)
Anyone?