I'm posting from Mediapup live CD, using Cricket Wireless 3G a600 usb modem, that was initialized from a windows XP boot, and maintains that status after rebooting into Mediapup, where the wizard properly recognized it. It stays initialized while plugged in.

Enter #777 for the phone number

Enter your Cricket phone number for your username (found on your purchase docs)

Enter Cricket for your password

Click the connect button

Cricket can be slow in your local 'prime time', 10-30k per second,
but 50 -80 k for most of the day. They do have a 5 gig download limit, but no overage charges, choosing to throttle down the connection after 5 gigs instead. $43 a month, no contracts, and rebate offer for a free modem

There is an app called usb_modeswitch that some use to initialize the modem without a windows boot.

Mediapup is nice, looking forward to using it!

edit how ironic that there is a cricket add and picture of the a600 just four inches from this post! ---->

Sweet, no problems! Good to know about this device.

Here is the a600 version of /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf

With this, and an installed usb_modeswitch app, the root user runs the command:

usb_modeswitch, which will initialize the modem on a computer that
is linux-only. In about 10-20 seconds, you'll see the blue lights
go on, then you can use your dialer software to get online.

Go to this site for detailed info, and more .conf files for similar modems

http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch

Cheers