SMS gateways

Tue Jan 12 15:30:05 UTC 2016

Adam Kennedy <adamkennedy at watchcomm.net> writes:

> I picked up two of the AT&T "Beam" USB devices that use the LTE network.
> Netgear is the listed manufacturer and has firmware for the units that
> makes them usable on Linux. I loaded the driver for those into a Debian box
> and I'm able to use smstools open source software to send SMS from the unit
> directly to cell network. The AT&T Beam's were $20 I think and cost us
> about $15/mo as additional lines on our corporate plan.

Note that messaging in LTE networks tend to use IP, just like voice in
LTE networks.  It seems a little awkward having to use an LTE device
just to set up a dedicated IP VPN for SMS delivery if you have any other
fixed IP access at the site...

But I guess hiding all the nasty IMS implementation details in the LTE
module firmware, controlling it by standard GSM AT commands, has some
benefit here.  At least the firmware source code is unavailable so you
don't see how hideous it is :)

Bjørn