Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA

Adafruit cellular platform - SMS and IoT over celluar

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makerspaceme
 
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Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:01 am

Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA

Post by makerspaceme »

I work with on many student projects and a couple want cell phone service on remote environmental sensor systems in the US.
As far as I can tell from this forum and Adafruit, 2G is obsolete in the US and 3G may be on its way out.
Does this make all FONA card obsolete in the US?
We purchased a
Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3027

If a 2g system exists does a pay as you go system exist? Example like Net10
Credit card systems cause major issues in schools.
As you can imagine asking a school to get a credit card for student project cellphone service is quite a challenge.
Also if there is a pay as you go 3g system that works with arduino/pi please let me know?

In other posts they mention third party solutions that may work (particle ?)
We use a lot of Adafruit products but if Adafruit has no solution currently can you recommend someone else
with a board and sim card pair that works in the US?





------------------ email -----------------------------------------------
We purchased a Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA for a student project and
just looked at your sim card (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2505)

This seems to indicate that there is no way to use a FONA in the US

Are there any alternatives cellphone/sim services that are supported?

We also want to add cellphone messaging to a raspberry pi.
Do you have any recommendations?
Many of the cell device examples online for Raspberry pi/Arduino are older designs.
It is difficult to tell if they have US support issues also.
Are all the fona devices not supported by any US cell phone companies?
Are there any IOT Arduino/raspberry pi cell phone systems that are supported in the US?
There seems to be services that support 100s of devices but not one to 10 at a low cost.

Adafruit reply
Thanks for the note. Ting works on the T-Mobile 2G GSM network which is shutting down in the USA over the course of 2020 and beyond, so please be aware these are not for long term usage and may not work in your region. You may not be able to activate these SIM cards for the 2G network, please call TING on the phone rather than using the online account creation as they will not let new 2G accounts activate online.

For more information, please visit:
https://ting.com/shop/gsmSIM

We offer a variety of cellular items, please visit:
https://www.adafruit.com/category/281

The question is if ting no longer supports FONA in the US who does?
Are all the FONA cards obsolete in the US?
If no US cell carriers support FONA then they can't be used in the US
From your website comments it sounds like T-Mobile is the last US company
that can be used by the FONA systems and now T-Mobile/TING no longer support
2G all FONA cards are obsolete. It does not have to be TING if there is a
company that supports long term who are they?

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jim_lee
 
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Re: Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA

Post by jim_lee »

I use the same board and I can still get Ting to issue me a card and turn it on. You have to actually talk to someone there to do it. You can't do a 2G phone through their website.

-jim lee

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