I know of a company who sells "Siemens MC35 Terminals" for around $500, and they work really well.. (Will not advertise the company name, but if you are interested, please send me a note off list, and I will post a link to the New Zealand based company) <From the Website> "Suitable for use with terminal devices which support TCP/IP, e.g., a PDA or laptop computer. For GPRS applications where your equipment does not include IP support. * Supports full GSM functionality (circuit-switched data calls and SMS) as well as GPRS data." Although I have wondered, what happens in the "3G" world.. And this is probably sending this wildly off topic, but I would be keen for an answer, so if you know, could you post to me off list. If one was to buy such a unit, or, like in Vending Machines, Bank currency conversion signs, GPS location trackers in Cars and truck, in fact anything that uses one of these devices.. Will the GSM modules need to be replaced when / if Vodafone close down the 2g network, or does the 3g services continue to work on the same spectrum space, and those underlying services, SMS, data calls and so forth, continue to work even in that "brave new world of 3G". I guess this solution also provides you a way being able to access your network from a remote location, even if your fixed wire provider is down. One thing to note though:
From the Vodafone network, you are unable to send to the 026 pager network.
After talking to someone about this at work, he says, that its either a Vodafone issue not sending the packets to the 026 network or Telecom not allowing others to connect to the network.. (he could not remember exactly) Either way, from a CDMA / 027 unit (if you can find one of these, but there are not many out there, the "any-data" springs to mind, but something to note the linux tool kit "smstools" I don't think play nice with them) can page to the 026 network. I guess no mobile operators are on this list, but if there are, they might be able to shed some light as to why you are unable to send messages to the 026 network from Vodafone phones or perhaps look into the problem, and sort it out :) ..... On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 14:00 +1200, Drew Whittle wrote:
We've just been down this track at work.
Until now we have been using the X.25 network to send out SMS alerts, but yesterday we received a nice little cellphone black box with a serial interface, you can use it to send and receive SMS messages and you talk to it using modem AT type commands.
It's looking like a pretty good, and cheaper solution, and it will allow us to do more.
I can't remember the brand/model off the top of my head, but I can look on Monday if people want to know. From memory the unit costs $700 to buy and then there is just the standard cost of sending SMS messages.
Drew
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