Aircard 850 on a Thinkpad Z61M

[josh@ramat.cc]

I'm running Debian unstable, linux-image-2.6.21-1-686_2.6.21-4_i386.deb and 
pcmciautils 014-3 on a Lenevo Thinkpad Z61M. I am trying to get my Sierra
Aircard 850 recognized. When I insert the card into the PCMCIA slot I get the
following in syslog:

Jun 21 23:37:28 lab001 kernel: pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
Jun 21 23:37:28 lab001 kernel: pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0

i.e. no TTY is assigned to the card

otherwise the card is recognized:

=================================================================
lab001:~# lspcmcia -v
Socket 0 Bridge:        [yenta_cardbus]         (bus ID: 0000:15:00.0)
        Configuration:  state: on       ready: yes
                        Voltage: 5.0V Vcc: 5.0V Vpp: 0.0V
Socket 0 Device 0:      [serial_cs]             (bus ID: 0.0)
        Configuration:  state: on
        Product Name:   Sierra Wireless AC850 3G Network Adapter R1
        Identification: manf_id: 0x0192 card_id: 0x0710
                        function: 2 (serial)
                        prod_id(1): "Sierra Wireless" (0xd85f6206)
                        prod_id(2): "AC850" (0x42a2c018)
                        prod_id(3): "3G Network Adapter" (0xab3c6f47)
                        prod_id(4): "R1" (0xd9533fec)
===================================================================

when I run cardmgr though, the card is recognized and assigned to TTYS0. Do you
have any suggestions as to why this is and how I can get this card assigned a 
TTY using a 2.6 kernel?

Thank you,

--
 - Josh