[TriEmbed] IOT data plans

[Alex Davis]

> I'm setting up node-red ( http://nodered.org/ ) on a Raspberry Pi, to
> handle home automation/IoT stuff.  Since I want it to ping me if my house
> is on fire, I'm looking around for device-oriented data plans, in case
> home

I used to use PTEL. They are no longer in service. I liked them as you
paid on a combo of minutes and service length. I think every 3 months
was $30, and it came with some amount of minutes I'd never use up. The
problem was that my home is in a t-mobile null, so it was useless for
home automation. We ended up putting the SIM in an unlocked feature
phone for one of my kids. T-mobile is fine in the City of Raleigh.

ptel.com is now a landing page for prior customers, and has links to
similar low-cost service providers. Maybe one of those is good?

There's also alarmsim.com. Their deal is your minutes never expire, but
the SIM cost upfront is expensive, and they only support SMS, no text or
MMS.

Ever consider working out a deal to use a neighbor's wireless as a
fallback, in case your own service goes out? Then you don't need the GSM
modem.

Finally, would anyone like to trade for a Seeed Studio Arduino GSM
shield? I have one, but have no use for it (because no service where I
live). I have updated the firmware on mine so it works with the nice
Adafruit GSM library and supports MMS. Let me know what you have to
trade.

Alex

-- 
"The theater of noise is proof of our potential."
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