What’s Cooking @ e-Gizmo: Episode 1 – GSM Modem Modules

We received words from our supplier that Benq M23 GSM Module, the module where our GSM Modem kit is based, is no longer in production. I guess we received this info a moment too late because by the time we got the notice, M23s have disappeared altogether from distributor’s shelves. This presented a problem to us, because we have quite a backorder of this of product, and if we don’t play this right, we know we will have several furious customers wanting to burn our place down.

As it turned out, M23 is obsoleted and replaced by a newer model, the M33. Adding to the confusion, the company making these module, BenQ, also changed its name. They now call themselves Qisda.

We finally got hold of a few units of M33, and we are pleased to know that most hardware changes, save for some like the debug port which is now USB, are hidden from the user. From a user point of view, M33 won’t be much different from M23. Hardware and microcontroller firmware made for M23 should also work for M33 without the need to modify anything. This is good news. We could just throw in M33 as a direct replacement of M23, this I hope will make our customers waiting for M23 (that is not coming) appeased and happy.

The M33 GSM Modem is  a drop-in replacement (save for a few hardware changes) of the now obsolete M23

In our search for a replacement, we stumbled upon an attractive alternative, a GSM/GPRS modem manufactured by SIMCOM (believed to be the world’s third largest manufacturer gsm modem module). We now have several samples of SIMCOM 340D modules and are now currently working on a PC board to test and evaluate it. If we get good results, we will build a new GSM Modem kit based on this module. This promises to sell on a price significantly lower than our current BenQ based GSM Modem kit.

SIMCOM SIM340D GSM/GPRS Module promises to make the price of our next generation GSM/GPRS Modem kit  significantly lower than our current M23 based kit.

SIMCOM SIM340D placed side by side with Qisda M33AG for size and physical feature comparison.

Next in line is yet another interesting product also from SIMCOM, the SIM548C GSM/GPRS + GPS combination module. This product may prove to be a cost effective solution for GSM/GPRS vehicle tracking and similar applications. We have not yet tested this product as of this moment, but we certainly will, and details of the test will be published then through this blog.

 SIMCOM SIM548C GSM/GPRS Combination Module