[dc-ops] Suggestions for USB cell modem for SMS alerting

[Ray Van Dolson]

On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 08:32:27AM -0700, Doug McIntyre wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 09:44:32AM -0400, Matthew Huff wrote:
> > I'm trying to setup a box to send critical nagios alerts via SMS
> > directly to operations staff's phones using either kannel or
> > smstools. Does anyone have any suggestion for a USB cell modem that
> > will work in a datacenter in the NE US? Verizon & AT&T have decent
> > service in our region. Ideally the modem would be able to be
> > connected to an external antenna we would run up to the roof.
> 
> MultiTech MultiModem GPRS. 
> 
> http://www.multitech.com/en_US/products/families/multimodemgprs/
> 
> We haven't used the USB model before, just the serial model. 
> 
> Being GPRS, it'll work on AT&T, but not Verizon. We've used mostly
> AT&T, some T-Mobile. 
> 
> Never had any need to run a special antenna for it, it always got
> decent enough signal with its little stubby antenna. We don't go into
> Equinox sized buildings either though. It does have a standard SMA jack.

Another MultiTech user here.  We use the iSMS SF-100G with AT&T.  We
make calls to the device's HTTP-based API.

It can take actions on receipt of SMS messages at all (if you wanted to
build in logic like ack'ing an event based on a text response from a
phone).

Ray