I can tell you from our experience with 3 mobile providers and SMS that 
unfortunately Verizon, Nextel, and Cingular tech support will tell you that SMS 
is not supported through 3rd party applications. In talking with their support 
people I was told that if it gets through fine if not oh well. We currently do 
use Cingular SMS as a backup for an outage. We also have a page that we send 
out as a test once a day through Cingular SMS. I can tell you that sometimes 
people will receive 2 SMS alerts although only one went out. Sometimes people 
will receive 0 sms alerts. I would say we run about 70-80% success on SMS 
paging. One thing you can try that did help us some was to get a hold of the 
tech support people and find a good local or 800 number to use for the SMS. I 
know the original number they had given us had a bank of bad modems. They new 
about them but were unwilling to fix. They gave me a list of 10 800 numbers and 
told me to use those. I started with the first one and if for some reason the 
daily pages get bad or really inconsistent I switch to another. Hope this 
helps… 

Jon Dolinar 

Manager, Network Security 

Cuyahoga Community College 

(216) 987-4354 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

 

From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chad 
Stiller
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 4:15 PM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: [SA-list] Unreliable SMS - any ideas? 

 

Hello all, I am a recent user of the Servers Alive program and have been 
listening in on the discussion list for a few weeks now. We are currently 
running v6.0.0.2056 of the program and have it working well with basic SMTP 
alerting. I have been working on setting up the SMS paging today to allow 
alerting directly to our Verizon cell phones in case of an Internet trunk or 
email server outage. The Servers Alive program dials out and connects 
consistently on a test, but I only receive one out of every 6 or so text 
messages. I have reviewed the information on the mailing list archive here: 
http://archive.serversalive.com/ (http://archive.serversalive.com/) and tried a 
few of the ideas (such as lowering modem speed, etc.) to no avail. I have also 
seen numerous complaints from Verizon users about this setup, but my boss 
swears he had it working great with a similar implementation at his old job, so 
I am stuck trying to find an answer! 


 


The information I have from Verizon's website to setup SMS paging is: 


Protocol: Standard TAP 
Toll-Free TAP Access Number: 1-866-823-0501 
Baud Rate Range: 300-19,200 bps 
Data Settings: 7 data bits, even parity 1 stop bit 
Message Length: 160 characters 
Wait to Connect: 60 seconds or longer 


 


Servers Alive Paging registry keys: 


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\Paging]
"Waittime"="60"
"Enabled"=dword:00000001
"CommSettings"=" 1"
"DelayedDelivery"=dword:00000000
"LegitimisationCode"=""
"AuthenticationCode"=""
"Operation"=" 0"
"Receiptformat"=" 100"
"Format"=" 3"
"SMSC"="18668230501"
"Sender"=""
"ActiveDevice"=" 0"
"ActiveDeviceName"="Lucent Win Modem"
"Protocol"=" 1"
"Baudrate"=" 2400"
"RequestReceipt"=dword:00000000
"MultiMessageSending"=dword:00000000
"MaxMessagePerCall"=" 10"
"DefaultPagerPhoneNumber"=""
"MaxRedials"="10"
"DoubleMessage"=dword:00000000 


 


There are no errors showing up in the SA logs, and I have tried using modem 
speeds of 2400,9600, and 19200 without any real change in the issue. I have 
also played with the wait time setting - tried it at 10 seconds, 30, and 60 - 
again with no change, and tried entering the phone number with spaces, dashes, 
and no gaps. I also played with the double message setting, but it didn't seem 
to make a difference either.  I am out of bright ideas, although I have had 
issues with Win modems in the past, so will try to scrounge up an old USR 
external to use as an additional test. Again, the SA program seems to be 
dialing out and connecting on each test attempt, but I only see about 1/6 of 
the messages come through on my phone. 


 


Sorry for the length of the post here but wanted to get all the data out for 
review. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know! Thanks in advance!! 


 


 


 

Chad D. Stiller, MCSE|MCP
Windows System Administrator
City of Flagstaff
(928)779-7685 ext. 7323

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