2G device SIM issues

I am working with a group of different 2G devices, all GPS trackers of various manufacturers. Each of these DOES currently work with the TING.com service just fine.

With Hologram, I cannot get connectivity at all. The dashboard shows no service, and assigning a phone number and sending SMS does not ever get received by the devices. I have confirmed SMS is not received via serial debug on one of the devices.

Is there a different SIM card I should order for 2G devices?

We use the same card for everything, 2G and beyond!

The one step that might be missing here is setting the APN. Did you change the APN to hologram on your devices? Could you walk us through more of the steps you’re taking and an example piece of hardware? We’d love to get it working with you on our network!

Also to verify, you already activated the SIM card in question? I assume yes, since you mention the dashboard.

Good to know it’s not something simple that I missed, like using the wrong SIM. My SIM is active on the hologram dashboard, and using a much newer device I did have successful communications previously.

The primary device I am concerned with is the TK206 OBD2 vehicle tracker. There are a bunch of knock-off generics on the market, I am using a true original as my focused test device.

The primary initial mode of setup is to send an SMS to the device to retrieve vehicle location. This failed to return or report anything in the serial console on the device. If SMS is setup on these devices, you can then send an SMS messages to configure the APN.

There may be a way to configure the APN over the serial link. I am a bit of a neophyte here though, would the APN effect SMS messaging? I don’t recall needing to do this step with the TING SIM though.

Hello leezilla,

My gut feeling whenever I hear 2G is that you might be in an area that does not support T-Mobile 2G which is the only 2G carrier we partner with. Sprint, I think, also offers 2G, but they use CDMA for 2G/3G and Verizon and AT&T have already sunset their 2G offerings to make more room for the upcoming LTE CAT-M1 technology. Therefore, the first step would be to simply make sure you are in an area that gets coverage. As Chris suggested the next step would be to check your APN, however, we can cross the bridge once we confirm you have access to the network. As you correctly point out, technically you don’t need to be on the APN to send and receive SMS messages, however, from most of our previous experiences the APN is usually where things get hung up. In the mean time could you please send your device’s sim number to success@hologram.io so we can take a look at what our backend is showing.

Best,
Maiky

I have been able to use the TING GSM service, with is on T-Mobile. Triangulating that point is that GPRS data from these devices on TING sim’s hit my backend service using IP’s registered to T-Mobile.

Email sent

I’m not sure what I did differently, but everything works well now. I even tried a new-from-box SIM and new-from-box device and was able to get it up and running correctly in just a few minutes. Consider this case closed, likely major case of PEBKAC. Log under error code ID10T.

Solved!

Well, gotta be happy when that happens. If you have other insight into what might have gone wrong or if you have future issues, please let us know!