Novatel Merlin

I'm trying to get a Novatel Merlin for Ricochet working under -CURRENT.
http://www.novatelwireless.com/support/support_ricochet.html

I've been able to connect to their network via PPP and do things like ping 
and traceroute to the rest of the internet.  However, when I try things 
that produce larger packets (ftp, telnet, ssh, etc), nothing works.

I've noticed (in the PPP logs and when sending AT commands directly) that 
characters get dropped occasionally.  I also found this document 
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~gmp216/nrm6842/bigfastuart.html which explains 
that the Merlin for Ricochet has a 576 byte buffer which, if full, will try 
and flush itself on a single interrupt.  Apparently under linux this is a 
problem because the serial buffer is only 512 bytes and it overflows.  Is 
this also a problem in FreeBSD?

I also get a lot of messages like this in /var/log/messages and on the console:

Jun 16 23:31:16 foo kernel: sio4: 137 more interrupt-level buffer overflows 
(total 821)

That would seem to indicate that dumping 576 bytes on a single interrupt is 
too much.  yes? no?

If the serial buffer is too small, would it be difficult to increase it's size?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  If I need to provide more info just 
let me know what to provide.

Thanks!

-Glenn

dmesg:

Copyright (c) 1992-2003 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
         The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD 5.1-CURRENT #2: Tue Jun 17 01:09:59 GMT 2003
     glenn_at_foo:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/foo
Preloaded elf kernel "/boot/kernel/kernel" at 0xc04ac000.
Preloaded elf module "/boot/kernel/acpi.ko" at 0xc04ac21c.
Timecounter "i8254"  frequency 1193182 Hz
Timecounter "TSC"  frequency 1666204780 Hz
CPU: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+ (1666.20-MHz 686-class CPU)
   Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0x662  Stepping = 2
   Features=0x383fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CM
OV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
   AMD Features=0xc0400000<AMIE,DSP,3DNow!>
real memory  = 536854528 (511 MB)
avail memory = 516341760 (492 MB)
Pentium Pro MTRR support enabled
npx0: <math processor> on motherboard
npx0: INT 16 interface
acpi0: <ASUS   A7V333  > on motherboard
pcibios: BIOS version 2.10
Using $PIR table, 11 entries at 0xc00f2050
acpi0: power button is handled as a fixed feature programming model.
Timecounter "ACPI-fast"  frequency 3579545 Hz
acpi_timer0: <32-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0xe408-0xe40b on acpi0
acpi_cpu0: <CPU> on acpi0
acpi_cpu: CLK_VAL field overlaps THT_EN bit
acpi_button0: <Power Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
pcib0: slot 5 INTA is routed to irq 10
pcib0: slot 9 INTA is routed to irq 4
pcib0: slot 9 INTB is routed to irq 11
pcib0: slot 9 INTC is routed to irq 10
pcib0: slot 13 INTA is routed to irq 11
pcib0: slot 15 INTA is routed to irq 12
pcib0: slot 15 INTB is routed to irq 4
agp0: <VIA Generic host to PCI bridge> mem 0xe0000000-0xe3ffffff at device 
0.0 o
n pci0
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
pci1: <display, VGA> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 5.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <serial bus, USB> at device 9.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <serial bus, USB> at device 9.1 (no driver attached)
pci0: <serial bus, USB> at device 9.2 (no driver attached)
xl0: <3Com 3c905B-TX Fast Etherlink XL> port 0xb800-0xb87f mem 
0xd7000000-0xd700
007f irq 11 at device 13.0 on pci0
xl0: Ethernet address: 00:01:02:2a:53:0e
miibus0: <MII bus> on xl0
xlphy0: <3Com internal media interface> on miibus0
xlphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
cbb0: <RF5C476 PCI-CardBus Bridge> irq 12 at device 15.0 on pci0
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb1: <RF5C476 PCI-CardBus Bridge> irq 4 at device 15.1 on pci0
cardbus1: <CardBus bus> on cbb1
pccard1: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb1
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 17.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <VIA 8233A UDMA133 controller> port 0xb400-0xb40f at device 17.1 
on pci
0
ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0
ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x64,0x60 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> flags 0x1 irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
orm0: <Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff on isa0
pmtimer0 on isa0
fdc0: ready for input in output
fdc0: cmd 3 failed at out byte 1 of 3
ppc0: parallel port not found.
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio0: configured irq 4 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio0: port may not be enabled
sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on isa0
sio0: type 8250 or not responding
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
pccard1: Allocation failed for cfe 32
sio4: <Novatel Wireless Merlin Ricochet Modem> at port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 4 
functio
n 0 config 33 on pccard1
sio4: type 16550A
sio4: unable to activate interrupt in fast mode - using normal mode
ata1-master: timeout waiting for interrupt
ata1-master: ATA identify failed
ad0: 13031MB <FUJITSU MPE3136AT> [26476/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA66
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a