Re: Data roaming €50 limit cap stops Networ kManager / ModemManager

[Aleksander Morgado <aleksander lanedo com>]

> 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.

The main problem here is that we lack of a UI interface to read/send
SMS. In ModemManager >=0.7.x, you can use mmcli to list, read, send SMS
messages; but of course a command line interface is not a very friendly
UI for everyone.

I know that there is work ongoing in KDE to have an SMS messaging
interface, and I know that Empathy in GNOME has some support for SMS
(for oFono if I'm not mistaken). We just need someone to either plugin
the MM Messaging interface in an already existing messaging application,
or write a whole new application all together. I thought about writing
an extension for GNOME Shell doing this, but never really started.
Anyone interested in doing that? :)

-- 
Aleksander