Pay-per-SMS SIM card? (GPS tracking)

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:13 am

So, there's pretty much a 0% chance that I would actually do this, because it's ridiculous and semi-expensive (though not as much as I would have thought), but I had the idea a few months ago to put a GPS tracker in my future Gamecube Laptop. See, it's going to be friggin' amazing, so it seems like it would be a perfect candidate for theft.

So, I did some looking into it... looks like it would be pretty simple using this module from Sparkfun. All it needs is a SIM card, and then I can simply set it up to respond to a SMS query with its current GPS coordinates. But, chances are, it would NEVER get stolen. I wouldn't want to pay $XX a month for a SIM card that just sits in there never being used, when in the rare chance that it actually got stolen, I'd only have to send/receive ONE SMS with it anyway. So, for the question, does anyone know of some sort of pre-paid no expiration SIM card deal that supports SMS? Like I said, it will probably never make its way into my GC Laptop, but it would be pretty cool, and if I ever had the money to spare, I might seriously consider it.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:28 pm

AT&T Go is the only pre-paid SIM that will work close to the way you want that I know of in the US. You still have to periodically bump up the service days, even if you don't use it, though (something like every 3 months, IIRC).

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:34 pm

I wouldn't be so sure about the not getting stolen part, G-Force had his first NESp in a GB Pocket stolen, and didn't someone else get theirs stolen with a bag at an airport or something?

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:41 pm

What about those dog-tracking collars? I've seen Circuit City selling them, but it wasn't clear if they're a subscription service or not.

totokan · Post by **totokan** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:54 pm

Looking up what bicostp said, the only product I could find was Zoombak GPS Tracker Which, in addition to being over 100 dollars, requires a monthly service fee.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:20 am

Something many people don't understand about GPS receivers, is that all they can do by themselves, is figure out where in the world they are... but then what? Well, you still have to transmit this information somewhere to track it, right? GPS loggers, on the other hand, just keep... well, a log, of where they are at a certain interval of time. They are then brought to XYZ device where the log can be downloaded. But trackers need some way to get the information out to whomever is trying to track it in real-time. This can't be done via satellite. You can't transmit to a satellite with a GPS device, so some other form of communication is required...

That's where the whole cellphone thing comes in; that's usually how this information is transmitted. That's how GPS enabled cell-phones can be tracked. GPS navigators can't be tracked though, can they?

This is why all GPS tracking solutions seem to charge a monthly fee.

I don't know why I felt the need to explain that... oh well.

I wonder if there's some other way to do this... I just don't want to pay for a SIM card that I might not ever use. Maybe, once I have my own cell phone (shut up... I don't NEED one yet...), I can clone its SIM card so I only have to pay for one. It's not illegal, since you can't use them separately. If I was using the cellphone, I couldn't track the Laptop, for instance. It was become much harder to clone SIM cards than it use to be though, from what I understand.

Okay then, how do I clone a SIM card?