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Do data plans exist exist in the US that can make something like this not cost at least $20 or $30 a month? Like, something where you pay by the byte?

If so, I'd love to know about them. I have a half-dozen Opengear ACM5000 cell modems that I use to monitor telemetry. On average, I use 5 kilobytes per month - they wake up once a week or so and transmit a few hundred bytes.

Even on T-mobile's lowest data-only plan, it costs about $20/month per device.

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There are a number of companies that specialize in this. You basically pay by the KB and it works on nearly every GSM network globally.

Search for "M2M sim" and you'll find these services.

Thank you! I think you just saved us a ton of money. I didn't know about that term.

Ditto on the thanks. I've got a number of projects that would benefit from this, but I couldn't justify the data cost.

What about sending the data via SMS? T-Mobile has a $3/month plan with 30 text messages. 30 * 160 = 4800 bytes a month. Could probably squeeze more data through with the 30 voice minutes but you'd have to do analog -> digital somehow I assume.

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