The following are instructions for setting up a Verizon-provided [NovaTel 551L][1] on a Debian-based Linux system. Our target system was an embedded ARM [TS-7800][2], which left us somewhat handicapped when it came to the version of Linux that we were able to use. We were able to install Debian Wheezy (7.7) on this device, but limited to the kernel sources that were provided by the manufacture (2.6.34).
If you have a more modern kernel available to you (>=3.4), look into [libqmi][3] and [ModemManager][4], which use the native QMI protocol to communicate with the modem instead of the AT command hacks featured