I"m working on an app that uses text messaging (SMS) in an embedded application and I'd like to source a SIM card where I just pay per text (dont really care about the rates) but I refuse to pay a monthly fee for it. Does anyone know of any SIM card suppliers where I only need text messaging and am willing to pay a lot for it ($1 per text) but no monthly fee.
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\$\begingroup\$ Where are you from? In Italy you could easily buy a prepaid card with an average price of 10-15 cents per SMS... \$\endgroup\$– clabacchioJan 24, 2012 at 9:20
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4 Answers
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This is prepaid plan. However you must bay some credits (even if you have a few left) every month (that maybe different period in various carriers) to keep Your account active. But You can spend all credits for sms so technicality there isn't any "monthly fee".
But I think much cheaper and reliable solution would be using some Internet sms gateway for example http://www.clickatell.com/.
answered Dec 26, 2009 at 22:28
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\$\begingroup\$ The clickatell.com seems to be primarily for internet SMS gateway. I need to be able to send/receive messages only using SMS (not internet) from my application. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 27, 2009 at 15:34
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Can you not just get a pay-as-you go SIM card (which is possibly what msawicki is suggesting)?
Or in the UK I'm fairly sure that you could also get a SIM card from one of the networks on a pay monthly tariff (not expensive if you only go for the SIM) and pay about £5 a month for unlimited (sort of) text messages.
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I was looking for a similar type plan but could not find one in the U.S., the cheapest one that I found was by boost mobile. You still need to pay periodically but its only every 3 months.
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I know this is 5 years late, but...
Telna Mobile is a T-Mobile MVNO with a $19/year (not month!) plan that includes unlimited received texts and 1000 sent texts per month. Voice is billed per minute. It sounds like a good fit for applications like alarms, GPS pet trackers, etc., that only do texting, and send no more than 1 text every 45 minutes, on average.
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1767829-Telna-Mobile/
I'm eyeing it for possible use with one of those "TK Star" GPS pet tracking collars. $53 for the collar (on eBay) + $19/yr for the service (from Telna Mobile) would be much, much less expensive than other options I've found.
The only thing that makes me a bit nervous about them is that they're post-paid, not pre-paid, so if you somehow accidentally rack up a big "overage" you could get a big surprise bill at the end of the month.
Caveat: I've never used them, so can't vouch for them.
