I have the Sparkfun LTE/NB-IoT board and Arduino Redboard (CEL-15087, DEV-13975) and I am running the example programs in the Sparkfun LTE library (loaded today 6/18/2019). Arduino talks to LTE shield fine. LTE Shield finds and connects to either Verizon or Sprint. Hologram SIM is activated and I can see Hologram dashboard says it is Live. When I send an SMS message to my iPhone with the example (01_SMS_Send) sketch it appears to work (function return code zero) and Hologram is charging me $0.19 per message. But no message ever appears on any of the three phones I have tried (two different iPhones and a Android based phone), all on the Verizon network (USA, Colorado). Has something changed since the example programs were written, or is there some undocumented step I may have skipped? Thanks
Here is a log showing the connection to the Cell Network:
13:02:08.417 → Scanning for operators…this may take up to 3 minutes
13:02:08.484 →
13:03:47.616 → Found 5 operators:
13:03:47.650 → 1: 311 480 (311480) - AVAILABLE
13:03:47.684 → 2: 312 530 (312530) - AVAILABLE
13:03:47.718 → 3: 311 882 (311882) - AVAILABLE
13:03:47.752 → 4: 310 120 (310120) - AVAILABLE
13:03:47.785 → 5: 311 480 (311480) - AVAILABLE
13:03:47.819 →
13:03:47.819 → Press 1-5 to select an operator.
13:09:24.289 → Connecting to option 5
13:09:24.323 → Network 311 480 registered
13:09:24.357 →
13:09:24.357 → Connection info:
13:09:24.424 → APN: hologram
13:09:24.458 → IP: 10.52.115.57
13:09:24.492 → Operator: 311480
13:09:24.525 → RSSI: 22
13:09:24.525 →
Hi CPKLoveland,
Nothing should have changed with the Hologram network since the example sketches were written so I do not think it is an issue with that. One quick suggestion that you may have overlooked is are you including the country code in the phone numbers you are sending the SMS to?
From a quick search, I found [this post on Hologram.io’s Community Forums. It may be that Verizon is blocking the number of your Hologram SIM card since it is a +88 number. If you have verified the phone number(s) are input correctly with the proper country code, this may be part of the issue. It’s not ideal but you could try sending a message to another phone on a different carrier. Otherwise, you may want to e-mail the Hologram support team linked in that post for help debugging the issue as it appears the code is working just fine and the message is being sent but something on the Verizon phones’ end is blocking it.
Let us know if you continue to have problems sending SMS messages or have any other questions about the LTE/IoT Shield and we would be happy to help.](SMS Messaging send message not being received by Verizon Text Client - Data, Carriers, Costs and Features - Hologram Support Community)
Hello: Thanks for the reply. I just received a reply from Hologram stating the SMS function is not supported in NB-IoT and other priorities may be implemented first. I will also try the “other carrier” idea.
So I just tested with an AT&T smartphone and the shield/arduino/hologram SMS system works. It looks like Verizon is blocking SMS messages to phones on their network from Hologram. None of the 4 Verizon phones received the test messages, and the AT&T phone got it in about 2 seconds. I read that Verizon installed new anti-spam software recently?
Interesting. I am not aware of any new anti-spam software from Verizon but I don’t keep up with cellular network news so that may be the case. I do not see anything from Hologram detailing the issue yet but they would be the authority on the matter since it is their network.
I’ll forward this information on to our Tutorials and Engineering teams to look into in case we need to do some thorough testing with Verizon with the Hologram SIM or, at the very least, add a note in our documentation explaining the issue.
Noob here - this is my first LTE board project. I have a similar setup using an Arduino Leonardo. I successfully registered the board and device indicates active on the Hologram dashboard. The carrier is AT&T in Florida.
I attempt to send a test message to my phone using 01_SMS_Send example with the following results:
15:50:37.884 → LTE Shield connected!
15:50:37.884 → Type a message. Send a Newline (\n) to send it…
15:50:51.910 → Sending: Test 200121a
15:50:51.956 → Connecting to socket: 0
No message is received by my phone.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Kind Regards
Allen,
Can you run/verify [Example 0 from the hookup guide? We would want to check and make sure you’re able to connect to the carrier, to begin with.
Verify that “AT&T” appears in the list of operators and the connection is successful.](LTE Cat M1/NB-IoT Shield Hookup Guide - SparkFun Learn)
Hello Brandon,
Thank you for your reply. Here are the results of Example 0:
11:41:42.569 → Initializing the LTE Shield…
11:41:42.569 → …this may take ~25 seconds if the shield is off.
11:41:42.569 → …it may take ~5 seconds if it just turned on.
11:41:43.434 → LTE Shield connected!
11:41:43.434 →
11:41:43.488 → Already connected to: AT&T Hologram
11:41:43.488 → Press y to connect to a new operator, or any other key to continue.
11:41:43.488 →
Best regards,
Tim
Hi Allen,
After looking through the Hologram.io forums, there are likely several ways we could troubleshoot. It seems that your device connects to a socket and stops at that level.
Community tips:
1.) ‘Larger than necessary’ power supply. The module could brownout running certain methods if the supply is too small. Try connecting the RedBoard or corresponding Development Board to a 5V/2A Power supply
2.) Double-check the phone number you’ve written in the top portion of the code is correct to your phone number
3.) Try operating outside of enclosed spaces or metallic structures if you’re not already doing so.
In the meantime, I would also suggest browsing the [Hologram.io support community if there are other pertinent circumstances or similarities with your setup/operation that others may be having issues with.](https://community.hologram.io/)
Hello,
New to this forum. Just wondering if the posted issue was ever resolved? I recently bought the board/SIM combo and I am not able to receive SMS on my phone which is Verizon. After searching it seemed I may need a phone number for my Hologram SIM, so I bought one, but still did not work. Not impressed with Hologram support up to this point. Hoping someone here can help.
Thank you.
Steve
If I’m not mistaken, their should be a setting to enable SMS on the Hologram account. Are you getting any specific error messages?
Hi Brandon, No error message on the Arduino side. It thinks everything is fine. According to what I understood on the Hologram site, was that if I wanted to send SMS to my phone I needed to by a phone number for my SIM card. I did this but results are the same, not working. I contacted Verizon which is who my cell provider is and they said they are not blocking anything from getting to my phone. So either the LTE shield is not really sending anything, or Hologram configuration is wrong, but I have tried everything I found on Hologram’s site and still no success. So at this point all I have is a pretty board that does nothing for me. Hopefully that can be resolved. Thanks for your reply. Steve.
Hi, I’m having a similar issue here. I’m sending an SMS using the 01_SMS_Send sketch, but I’m not receiving it on my phone. I have included the area code in the phone number.
I’m in Canada, and the destination phone number is by Telus. Is there any reason why this doesn’t work?
It’s hard to say exactly why but it could be your network provider for your phone blocking the message. I think Hologram sends SMS through a server in another country and your provider might be blocking it because it thinks it’s spam.
Might try the [Hologram forum, they may be able to show you a work around for this.](https://community.hologram.io/)
In other places, I have read indications that there are those who use SMS devices to send spam. If Hologram is being used as a source for such messages, it would be no wonder if cellular networks are blocking Hologram.
For myself, once the Hologram account was created, Send_00 and Send_01 performed as advertised. But, like others, Send_01’s message never arrived at my cell phone.
Tried tracking down possible problems in the library’s code. But the only thing I could find was in commented-out debug code. In LTE_Shield::sendCommandWithResponse, I changed Serial.print((String)command); to Serial.print(command) so that the entire command would be displayed.
Hologram paused my account after awhile since I ran out of my first-month’s free-data limit.
Given the earlier postings, I’m not going to bother trying to resolve the issue of SMS messages not arriving at cell phones. Going to proceed with the next phase of testing, attempting to send data to my Hologram account. It will be interesting to see if Hologram can send alerts to my cell phone when values pass certain limits.