SMS messaging with GPRS/3G modems

[viking777]

I know I ask some pretty obscure questions, and I apologise in advance, but here is another one.

 

Anybody who has read some of my previous posts will know that I frequently connect to the internet with gprs/3g modems. At the moment I have two of these (this is not by choice, simply that I bought the second before the contract on the first had run out) anyway, the one I propose to use is a payg modem, which for me is a much cheaper option than my present contract modem. But like everything in life it is not perfect. Whilst the normal payg charges are reasonable enough, the out of bundle charges are enough to bankrupt Bill Gates, never mind me. I phoned their helpline and asked what happens when your present top-up runs out (in other words I want to know how to avoid the out of bundle charges) their answer was that "We send you a text message to warn you that your credit is low". The problem with this is that being a Linux user, their software (which will receive text messages) does not run on any Linux distro and I have never managed to get it to run with wine either. The long and short of this is that I will not receive their text message, and this is why I want to find some Linux software that will receive text messages through a gprs/3g modem.

 

I have tried several programs that seem to fit the bill, but none of them work. They sit there in my system tray and loudly proclaim that I have 'no active connection' despite the fact that my modem is connected to the internet and I have downloaded the sms program using it. My only option at the moment is to use something like the 'drakconnect' 'monitor network' program to monitor my usage when I get near to my credit limit or else to constantly return to the ISP website and monitor usage from there, but it is not updated often enough to be much use.

 

So does anybody out there know of a program that I can run on Mandriva that will reliably receive text messages through a gprs/3g modem? Most of the ones that I have tried don't recognise the modem as a mobile phone and thus don't work.

 

TIA