trying to connect to mobile broadband connection

Need more information before anyone can help you, can you post the output of these commands? : 'sudo lspci' 'sudo lsusb' and 'ifconfig'? All should be entered without the punctuation. :)

@zilla please help the user on how to get this info better...

Please first connect your network card to the wireless router using an ethernet cable (also known as a LAN cable).

In order to gather essential troubleshooting information about your wireless card, please follow this procedure:

Step 1: Please install Ubuntu 10.04 from a LiveCD session. Ubuntu 9.04 is already old compared to Ubuntu 10.04. If you are having wireless issues in 9.04, you should use 10.04 instead.

Step 2: Open Terminal from "Applications->Accessories->Terminal"

Step 3: Please copy-paste the following command from the https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu website in Firefox into the Linux Terminal. Do NOT copy-paste from the Email message into the Terminal, as that will only copy PART of the command. The command STARTS with the word sudo and ENDS with the word restart. So please copy-paste the ENTIRE command below from Firefox into a Terminal, press <enter>, then enter password when sudo asks for password, then press enter again.

Tip: If you have a wheel mouse or 3 button mouse you do not need to type commands into the Terminal. Highlight the command written on the page. Move your cursor anywhere in the Terminal and press the wheel or middle button. Automatic Copy and paste! No spelling mistakes! No Typos! No other errors!

sudo aptitude update; sudo aptitude install hwinfo grep; sudo lshw -C network; rfkill list; sudo iwlist scanning; cat /etc/network/interfaces; cat /etc/lsb-release; lspci -nn; lsusb; sudo lshw -short; uname -a; dmesg | egrep 'ound|irmware|eth|ath|wl|ipw|b43|witch|ndiswrapper'; iwconfig; grep b43 /etc/modprobe.d/*; grep wl /etc/modprobe.d/*; sudo hwinfo --netcard ; sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Step 4: Please post results (copy/paste terminal output) on this thread. The troubleshooters here need to see the full Terminal output from running the above command.

Step 5: Please also specify the exact model and make of your PC (if known) on this thread

Zilla suggests this article as an answer to your question: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothDialup/Verizon
FAQ #741: “How do I report a bug when i try to report a bug i get an help page and not the bug report page”.

Thanks so much for your help, but I can not even get to the internet, so I can't do much. We are on vacation and I was trying to use my in-laws laptop. They have a verizon broadband key, but I have been unable to connect, maybe because they live in the upper part of Michigan in a little place outside of Gaylord, Mich. I am not computer savvy, so I hope I am making sense to you!!! Thank you so much!!