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Why so many SMS projects? Aren't cell phones expensive?

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blueroomelectronics

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It's a thread I see over and over, people wanting to connect their cell phones serial port to something (rarely defined what though)
What's the attraction? Cell phones aren't cheap exactly (not the user fees anyway) and what would you do if you got a serial port running?

Curious...
 

There could be a lot of reasons like mobility, remote access or remote data acquisition...
In which case, cell phone and local GSM or 3G networks can provide low cost solutions. Having mentioned 3G, projects no are no longer limited to SMS but can be extended to video
Anyway, there are a lot of cheap cellphones in our country
 

In Canada a cell phone it is often bundled for free with a contract, but are about $25 per month. And wouldn't you need two of them to make it work?
 

In my case it means money. I can make my cellphone to income a thousand dollars per year per cellphone and Im just barely scrathing the surface.

If somebody is smart enough to manipulate though SMS, it could even income in millions.
;-)
 

neoaspilet11 said:
In my case it means money. I can make my cellphone to income a thousand dollars per year per cellphone and Im just barely scrathing the surface.
;-)

Unsa imo pasabot ani bai?

What do you mean? How do you do it?
 

hi neo,
i also have similar ideas...

if u need any help ..let me know..

tom
 

Everything my company does is based on GPS and GSM being linked, though I don't use mobile phones but rather an in house designed GSM module with our own IP stack so the unit can send data over the internet to servers, using this method and if you have a nice cell phone company backer :) you can send megabytes of data for very little a month. Our in house GSM module costs us about 18$ to build and has every cell phone feature but with about 1/10 the power requirements in standby mode and also our own GPS receiver with 3mA while tracking.

The designs have taken best part of 5 years to get finished and many much longer than that but I for one can see the appeal of GSM connections.
 

Amazing so far it's like getting an answer from a politician, mostly vague answers like they are all top secret projects. bentleyrc appears to be making an adapter but what's its intended use?

As for making millions of dollars with these ideas well anything is possible but RS232 control has been around for ages in devices like GSM modems. So it's doubtful you can make millions on products that have been around as long as the cell phone. Phone companies also tend charge for data use, so it can be very expensive to use the AT modem like commands and hacking your phone may violate your contract and result in a discontinuation of service.

I have a Sidekick telephone, I can use it to surf the internet and also control internet based devices like my home thermostat. Since I already have the phone the feature is of no extra cost.

So what would you hook your cell phone to is the question?
 

"blueroomelectronics" your first line of message is very funny.........

tears are coming out of my eyes...

:D
 

blueroomelectronics,

you are in Canada, right? Have you ever been outside North America (no offence, just a question)? If you go to a country where you simply cannot get a GSM modem, or data connection is charged at an abnormal high rate, or the only operator in that country won't allow to his network anything else than the phones he sells - and you want to have remote control and feedback to/from a burglar alarm in a house - you'd use what's available relatively cheaply and easily - the phone.

Also, the prices, tariffs, pre- and post-paid schemes, vary wildly from operator to operator, from country to country.

And, in some countries, for various reasons, the second-, third-, N-th hand phone market is much, much, much more vivid than any other trade... such phone than can come at a really bargain price even in high volumes.

I know this is not answer to "what would you connect to your phone", but once you accept what was said above, you'd understand why phone is desired to be used instead of a modem (for which I believe you can imagine a whole host of possible applications).

JW
 

The majority of the SMS threads are often from countries where I assumed the rates would be very high. The physical phones are probably cheap, here in Canada people throw em away.
I would assume that using the modem in phones so equipped would be usually be enabled/controlled by the service provider and charged accordingly most likely not cheap. More likely it's disabled unless you pay for it.

My Sidekick has a USB port it's not turned on by default by my provider. They could turn it on but so that they can sell their data services have disabled it. If it was free I'd hook my notebook to it and use it as a wireless modem.

Does anyone have a working SMS system, what does it cost you? What equipment do you use?

PS GMS is not cheap here either.
 

Our DaemonTx project is currently undergoing Thatchem approval, that's the UK's insurance group test people. We are in talks with a large motor parts provider to offer 3rd party approved GPS tracking solutions for cars.

Costs for use? £0.00 free for life, If you go about it the right way SMS/GSM/GPRS can be an almost zero cost device, I can't go into details on HOW its free because thats what people will be paying for but for this device alone we have a tentative order for 30 units for each of the companies 238 branches, and thats just for starters.

We don't make any sort of adaptor but the SeekU product will be coming to a shop near you around xmas this year and will probably outsell the V3 razor if early tests are anything to go by, that system is not free but around 15$ a month.
 

There have been scads of GPS vehicle tracking solutions, and they ALL have monthly fees. You're also dependent on your provider to not change the billing.
 

:d but suppose someone came up with a way to do it for free? and had the backing of a cellular operator? I will agree that all current systems require a fee, but that will change, at least for the market this product is aimed at.

I think SMS messaging taps into that same primal feeling you get when you first see a black chip make an LED turn on and off, for some bizzar reason it is just amazing to watch, if you did the same thing with your desktop PC it really would rate as just about the lamest thing ever, but because it is this small remote device under your control its different somehow, SMS taps into that same "buzz" now not only can your little black chip do stuff all on its own, it can report back to you about whats its done or messured.

I think this is almost exclusively a male deep down primal thing and I have no idea why.

PS did you check your PM's
 

Cell operators don't appear to be in business and offer anything for free. It cost them to maintain, install, support even the electricity costs money. On top of that the most operators use some other companies wireless network (not free for sure).
Cell phones do not talk to each other directly, you need the network.
Considering the thousands of SMS based posts are their any that work (at no extra charge) if so who's the provider?
So far uses are...
1. Car tracking
 

In England at least there is a roaming agreement, it works something like this, assume there are 3 operators ( more in reality but this example we'll say 3)
Company A builds a transmitter tower , so do company's B and C, if A charges B and C for access then company A will also be charged by company's B and C for access, this will cause a proliferation of Towers each owned by each company, effectively tripling the required coverage for optimum operation each tower has a social cost attached to it and the increasing number of anti tower complains, costs for land and difficulty obtaining planning permission etc, mean that a 300% coverage network is not workable in reality.

What the companies do to get round this problem is allow free access to company B and C and B and C allow free access to their quipment, effectivly reducing there tower count by 3 and still giving the same coverage, each company pays a 1/3d of the costs of maintaining the tower.

All of this then gets down to the actual cost of a single SMS message via the proposed network, the amount works out be be so small that you need to move up to millions of messages to get an sensible figures, 70cents per million messages is a realistic base cost before profit. With that in mind the ability of operators to provide bonus systems such as 1000 free messages if you spend of $50 a month are perfectly viable and indeed often used.

What is less well understood is pull toward new "virgin" customers, i.e getting someone either without a mobile or with another company to join there network, the phone companies SPAM equivalent, to this end many companies offer some amazing deals like say free messaging for 6 months or Free calls to your favoirate 3 numbers for life etc etc.

If you are able to supply an operator with "fresh meat" paying or not they will reward you well. as it then gives them an "IN" to market them with new services.

I hope this clears up a few of the questions you had about free for life and other such offers not seeming realistic.

Fox
 

blueroomelectronics said:
It's a thread I see over and over, people wanting to connect their cell phones serial port to something (rarely defined what though)
What's the attraction? Cell phones aren't cheap exactly (not the user fees anyway) and what would you do if you got a serial port running?

Curious...

Cellphone here in us are not that expensive, you can get a nokia cellphone here for less than $20.00, but of course this is a 2nd hand model or re-conditioned phones, anyway, it is still cheap and good to experiment at.

SMS sending here is 1 peso per message, still cheap, exchange rate is around $1 = PhP 45.00, so you can make 45 sms messages for a buck :).

And subscription that you are attached to only one service provider is not a must, here we have pre-paid sim cards :).
 

blueroomelectronics said:
It's a thread I see over and over, people wanting to connect their cell phones serial port to something (rarely defined what though)
What's the attraction? Cell phones aren't cheap exactly (not the user fees anyway) and what would you do if you got a serial port running?

Curious...

This is a trend for a mobile communications too... other than just using sms and voice call, a lot of company now research how to add extra values for a cell phone, like GPS, tracking system, mp3 player... cell phone for future most likely become a mobile computer
 

blueroomelectronics said:
It's a thread I see over and over, people wanting to connect their cell phones serial port to something (rarely defined what though)
What's the attraction? Cell phones aren't cheap exactly (not the user fees anyway) and what would you do if you got a serial port running?

Curious...

In India we are getting life time connection (12 years) for a small annual rent of approximately 15 US$.
Assume you are away from home and your car locked with the key inside. if you can go to the nearest PCO an make a call to the mobile inside the car and send a dtmf code to open your car, it's nice na?
 

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