Texting on the cheap with Modem

[James Tregaskis]

I have bought a pay as you go ML100 dongle modem before checking the
deals on cheap texts.. I don't want to use it to connect to the
internet but simply a cheap/free means of sending a small amount to
texts, The best deal from O2 is £10 per month... does anyone know of a
cheaper deal? I will get another dongle if it works out cheaper...

--
www.tregaskis.org

[Mike Harrison]

You may be able to use other SIMs in the dongle - not sure if a SIM needs any special config to do
just texts in a modem, as opposed to data

[Alex Smith]

On Tue, Nov 09, 2010 at 01:31:15PM +0000, Mike Harrison wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 13:23:40 +0000, you wrote:
>
> >I have bought a pay as you go ML100 dongle modem before checking the
> >deals on cheap texts.. I don't want to use it to connect to the
> >internet but simply a cheap/free means of sending a small amount to
> >texts, The best deal from O2 is �10 per month... does anyone know of a
> >cheaper deal? I will get another dongle if it works out cheaper...

Is there a reason you're not just using a web based service?

> You may be able to use other SIMs in the dongle - not sure if a SIM needs any special config to do
> just texts in a modem, as opposed to data

It needs the messagecenter defined, but that's usually on SIM

[Dirk-Willem van Gulik]

Sounds pretty much like a working plan. Do put it in a phone to check if the SMC (message center) its phone is defined; as you will need that for your perlscripts/etc to work. Or config it manually/hardcode it in - and use it as a direct destination (as opposed to the virtual one).

For O2 in the UK they are
http://www.o2.co.uk/support/generalhelp/howdoi/texting/devicesettings
• +447802000332 for Pay Monthly, or
• +447802092035 for Pay & Go

And as this does not go through the name stack as a call - the + rather than 00 matters!

Dw.

[Jon Spriggs]

Hi All,

I've done this for a couple of projects now, and the last I saw, the
O2 tariff was a keeper!

If you're looking for any client software, or examples of how to send
SMS from your apps, my project (http://campfiremanager.googlecode.com)
uses a project called Gammu that will act as the SMS manager. In the
howto guide for CampFireManager, I explain how to set up Gammu on an
Ubuntu based system, with a MySQL back end.

Feel free to give me a yell on GTalk if you need any help setting this up.

Regards,
--
Jon "The Nice Guy" Spriggs

[George Buckenham]

I've previously used Kannel, and it's worked fine. But it is a bit complex to configure - your mileage may vary. I'm happy to give any assistance if you decide to go down that route.

I also should plug my employer here, even if they aren't really what you're looking for. http://www.mxtelecom.com/uk/ - we're pretty good, but a bit overpowered for what you're looking for. But if you want to hear the awful details of UDH and SMPP etc, then I know these things.

Also - if anyone has a spare dongle, I'd love to set up a mini SMS Gateway in the 'space. And no doubt robonaut would acquire the ability to text...

George

[Adrian Godwin]

I have a £5 per month from Orange - it allows 500M data and some number of texts. I think it's supposed to be open only to existing orange customers but I wasn't one.

Also, if you can get hold of a Joggler, they come with about 50 messages per month forever, no fee.

-adrian

[Peter Corlett]

On 9 Nov 2010, at 13:23, James Tregaskis wrote:

> I have bought a pay as you go ML100 dongle modem before checking the deals on cheap texts.. I don't want to use it to connect to the internet but simply a cheap/free means of sending a small amount to texts, The best deal from O2 is £10 per month... does anyone know of a cheaper deal? I will get another dongle if it works out cheaper...

You'll probably find that signing up with somebody like BulkSMS is much cheaper and less bother in the long run. I paid about £15 back around 2003 and it's still going. I've got a really shoddy Perl script to send automated messages through BulkSMS if you would like something to get you going.

One gotcha with sending SMSes through (some) mobiles is that the text message passes through the flash on the SIM, which will eventually wear it out.

[Jon Spriggs]

On 9 November 2010 20:19, Peter Corlett <ab...@cabal.org.uk> wrote:
<SNIP>

> You'll probably find that signing up with somebody like BulkSMS is much cheaper and less bother in the long run. I paid about £15 back around 2003 and it's still going. I've got a really shoddy Perl script to send automated messages through BulkSMS if you would like something to get you going.

I personally use the SMS dongle for use at barcamp style events where
the first thing to go is the WIFI, followed closely by the upstream
network connection. It's also useful for circumstances where the last
thing your box does before the UPS dies is to fire off an SMS to alert
it's just on it's way ou....... But seriously, I found that for what I
wanted, having the resilience of a physical device I could plug in and
rely on was priceless.

> One gotcha with sending SMSes through (some) mobiles is that the text message passes through the flash on the SIM, which will eventually wear it out.

Not to say you're wrong (as I've seen nothing about this), but as most
of the dongles use just AT commands and are sending directly to the
network, I'd imagine they probably aren't being written to the SIM
memory before being sent... of course I might be wrong, but if you've
got some documentation I could read up about that, I'd be really
interested in it.

All the best,