Data roaming €50 limit cap stops NetworkManager / ModemManager

[John Walicki <walicki us ibm com>]

Dan / Aleksander / List
I received this request today from one of my corporate users and thought 
it was worthy of a discussion on how to extend NetworkManager / 
ModemManager to support this scenario.  He does a good job of articulating 
the requirement so I'll leave it in his words.
-- John 

Mobile 3G USB stick enhancement request:
I have an Mobile 3G USB mobile stick from Vodafone (mobile phone operator 
in Ireland)
Which to its credit has saved me on many occasions when I go to customer 
sites, where Wifi are not allowed and I am not allowed to connect to their 
network.
With the 3G card, I can connect to the Internet and then into the 
corporate VPN.

Like this week, I needed and am using that 3G card.. However I have hit a 
limit which has stopped the card from working.
The limit is an EU regulation which states that all mobile operators most 
block your access when you exceed €50 limit on data when you roam from 
your home country to another country. This directive is imposed on all 
mobile phone operators in the EU. It is basically to protect the user from 
getting huge bills when we are roaming so it is a good idea.

I have hit this limit while at the customer site yesterday so it stopped 
the card from working.. (damn not what I need....)

The regulation says that the Mobile operator can up the limit to €300 once 
they receive a text/SMS from the 3G requesting the increase, so it is easy 
to work around, but Linux users have no facility in the implementation of 
the drivers in Linux to send this text via the device.

My request is can we enhance the drivers to allow us to send this SMS text 
message and so that the drivers will display the prompt when we reach the 
limit (with the instructions to send the text) please?

On Window, if you install the Vodafone Mobile connect client and when you 
connect via the 3G card and you exceed the €50 roaming data limit, it will 
display a prompt window informing you that you have reached the limit and 
instructions on how to send the text message to increase the limit. Also 
as part of the Vodafone Mobile client on Windows it has the facility for 
you send/receive SMS message via the 3G card/SIM. On Linux we do not have 
this interface, is there way to get at least the message displayed that 
says we have reached the limit and the text message we need to send?

What happened to my device is that it seemingly was connected, it showed 
as being connected, but I could not access any websites or tunnel into 
corporate VPN network, nothing would work... but yet the icon on the 
system tray showed it as being connected. I got no messages, and I have no 
status showing how much I have used etc...

I depend on this 3G card to do my work when there are no other network 
connections like at this customer this week, so hitting this limit cost me 
half a day yesterday and half of today where I could not work effectively.

I hope there is something that can be done to display the message when we 
encounter the limit... or maybe it is already logged in a log file 
somewhere that I am not aware of ... if it is and if you know where that 
file is at least then I could go and check.

-- John Walicki