What GSM / Cellular shield for Arduino

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
21

Has anyone had problems with connecting to the GSM network? I have a deal with one of our national operators. When the SIM card is inserted to a normal cell phone, it connects without any problems. But, when inserted to Geetech SIM900 GPRS shield, it has difficulties to register to the net.

On my desk it connects only occasionally, in our kitchen it connects better. Seems, that the shield needs really strong signal to register to the net. Last week in another city it connected every time without problems. What can I do to get it registered more reliably? This leads to antenna related issues, but everything seems to be ok. It has a removable antenna and from the antenna jack a thin lead goes to the board to another really small connector.

Picture in this link: http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/File:GPRS1.jpg

Any suggestions?

22

The Telefonica / Arduino GSM Shield is now available: http://store.arduino.cc/ww/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_5&products_id=244

Unfortunately a bit more expensive than I expected. I heard in an interview that the price would be well below already sold GSM modules, but it is rather more expensive than existing shields. I am also a bit disappointed that the power consumption seems to have the level of already existing shields.

Is the GSM lib included in the Arduino IDE 1.0.4 only for the new Arduino shield or is it also usable with the GBoard?? http://imall.iteadstudio.com/im120411004.html

Btw there is a service similar to Telefonica's from Cumulocity, her is the GBoard bundled with a Deutsche Telekom SIM

23

Does anyone know if this "official" GSM shield works fine with the Arduino MEGA 2560, or does it need some modifications like the other shields?

24

Does anyone know if this "official" GSM shield works fine with the Arduino MEGA 2560, or does it need some modifications like the other shields?

I'm not sure if you ever figured this out but the documentation for the official Arduino GSM Shield includes the following instructions for using with a MEGA2560/ADK/Leonardo- http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/GSMShieldLeonardoMega

My problem has been the use of serial data as the gsm shield uses SS for its own communication. If your trying to send data from another serial input (such as GPS) the answer appears to be complicated to say the least...