On 10/10/12 10:10 AM, William Herrin wrote:
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 12:18 PM, jamie rishaw <j@arpa.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 7:15 PM, Aaron Toponce
Instead, purchase a cellular USB modem with a standard plan. All 4 major carriers provide APIs to interact with the modems, and you get everything you need*. They aren't cheap (something in the neighborhood of $30/month),
If his need is mission critical, and $30/mo breaks the bank .. I'd respectfully submit that there wasn't much of a mission.. :-p
I do agree, tho, that an external / serial / mmmmaybe-usb gsm device is the route to pursue.
Perhaps I should explain a little further:
I have a system in place based on just under a dozen Multitech GSM modems in a room by a window. It works... more or less.
It has no provisions for equipment or site failure. The modem breaks, that number is unavailable. The site fails, that number is unavailable. The local cell network gets jammed, the number is unavailable. That's the opposite of "high availability."
So, I need to replace it with something that offers high availability for each phone number, aka "SMS long code." I realize that the phone end will still suffer all the vagaries of SMS. But on the base end I need high availability.
I expect this to cost more than throwing a dozen GSM modems in a room. I won't be offended when it does.
What about finding someplace offsite and setting up a persistent PPP connection with modems (of the POTS variety) between it and home base? Put half the modems there and maybe a low power Atom server with hooks to send alerts like "connection to home hasn't come back after X redials". I do something similar by having cheap DSL with a provider I don't have any other services with to provide a outside world view of things. I have a POTS line there too that can auto-dial back home if needed. ~Seth