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GSM Modems for Alerting

jrvickers over 16 years ago

Hi All,

We are looking at integrating the GSM alerts in ipMonitor to a GSM Modem. Having read details about GSM Modem technology, it appears that modern day mobile handsets do not support some of the standard extended AT Command sets - i.e. many new Nokia's

Because it seems as if handsets can be a little "flaky", we have been looking at just plain gsm modems. It looks as if the Siemens MC35iT modem is very popular for industrial applications - has anyone tried using this modem, or can they recommend one that they've tried and tested?

We are using ipMonitor 8.5

Thanks,

James.

0 Derek over 16 years ago

Here is a brief list that of GSM phones/modems that some of our customers have reported using.
Nokia 6820
Nokia 6670
iMate SP3i
M2M Express from Bluetree
Anyone else care to add to this list? :)
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0 Peter.Cooper over 16 years ago in reply to Derek

M2M Express from Bluetree

Derek, is this the one we have deployed in Quebec? If so, I really dig it and would recommend it.
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0 Derek over 16 years ago in reply to Peter.Cooper

Yes the M2M Express is indeed the one!
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0 BTSpaul over 16 years ago in reply to Derek

M2M Express is announced 'end of life' as of August 2007
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0 BTSpaul over 16 years ago in reply to BTSpaul

At the time of ipMonitor purchase, we got a Multitech GPRS modem and now it turns out that it does not work with ipMonitor at all (during alert test all I get is "Error: The outbound alert message did not reach its destination. The test failed."). What's the tricky part with Multitech? Using standard Windows HyperTerminal I can do: AT+CMGS="PHONENUMBER"<Enter>Message text<Ctrl-Z> and my cellphone instantly receives the message. Is ipMonitor's approach different from using AT-commands?

I have a support case ticket on this issue opened for two weeks now... We cannot launch our ipMonitor to go live because of no GSM alerting. I've asked SW tech.support to provide a fix or a timeline for the fix, or give a list of modems 100% compatible with ipMonitor (not the phones, but GSM modems that are available in the market), but all I get is a list of 3 phones and M2M Express which is no longer available for purchase. Maybe somebody in this community could give a hint about modems that ipMonitor can work with? To me it looks like SW support is ignoring the issue.

Thank you
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0 Peter.Cooper over 16 years ago in reply to BTSpaul
Multitech should with ipMonitor, they're a player. If after reading my post, and nothing clicks, have a peek at existing command line alternatives. It wouldn't be native, but the alternative of waiting (I hate waiting on stuff) is worse.

To me it looks like SW support is ignoring the issue.
We’re waiting for a Multitech modem to come in so that we can include it in our daily use & testing. I do not have an ETA for when the device is coming in. I'd take your modem, but then you wouldn't have one. :-)
all I get is "Error: The outbound alert message did not reach its destination. The test failed.")
What concerns me is that your feedback (and ticket) doesn’t come with an indication that you have a dump of input & output from the modem. ipMonitor’s supposed to provide a log / timeline of bytes sent and received … to help everyone involved sort out modem issues. If you have one or don't have one, fire the dump (or absence) in to your open ticket.
Is ipMonitor's approach different from using AT-commands?
ipMonitor does use AT commands, but it will use a binary mechanism for sending out messages that has some checksum stuff in it. We’ve got the ability to enable sending messages using a text mode via (v9 instructions):
Configuration tab > System settings > Global Behavior Modifiers.
Add “alerting.gsm.textmode.enable” with a value of “1”.
Click apply.
Recycle the power on the modem just ‘cause :-).
Test your alert again.
Note: If you mix and match ipMonitor and an external utility that uses the modem, the external utility might modify the flow control or echo mode on us. If the GSM modem is being used on the box successfully by other utilities, just use that utility via an "EXE Alert".
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0 BTSpaul over 16 years ago in reply to Peter.Cooper

If after reading my post, and nothing clicks, have a peek at existing command line alternatives.

I would have done this, but I did not find any Any hints on utilities that might be used for "EXE Alerts"?

What concerns me is that your feedback (and ticket) doesn’t come with an indication that you have a dump of input & output from the modem. ipMonitor’s supposed to provide a log / timeline of bytes sent and received … to help everyone involved sort out modem issues.

Here's the log (will also send it to to the open support ticket):

Action Error: The outbound alert message did not reach its destination. The test failed.
Call Log, started: Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 07:52:7
0.000 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
0.443 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
0.896 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
1.350 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
1.803 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
2.256 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
2.709 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
3.162 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
3.615 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
4.068 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
4.522 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
4.975 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
5.428 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
5.881 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
6.334 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
6.787 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
7.240 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D
7.694 secs Sent ..ATE0Q0.AT..
1B 0D 41 54 45 30 51 30 0D 41 54 0D 0D

We’ve got the ability to enable sending messages using a text mode ...

Tried this. Same result :-(

0 BTSpaul over 16 years ago in reply to BTSpaul

I found the command-line tool, which works fine. Now I am trying to set up an alert with "External process" action and I have trouble building the 'Failure command line': I need to pass phone number and message text to the batch file, so my Failure command line looked like this:

+1xxxxxxxxxx %monitorname%

However, if monitorname is multiword, only the first word is taken by the batch. Naturally, I need to enclose it into quotation marks, but when I do +1xxxxxxxxxx "%monitorname%", things stop working: I assume the batch file gets confused getting %monitorname% variable which is not resolved to a name by ipMonitor after being enclosed in quotation marks. The question is: how do I enclose a token in quotation marks, so that it keeps resolving?

Also, thinking ahead, how do I include content generator results (if any)? I.e. how do I include Windows Event Log error text into the SMS alert?

Thank you!
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