The concept of communicating with an Arduino over the mobile phone network for sending message and data is not a new idea, however the implementation can be tricky thanks to the poor documentation with various GSM shields. However not to be held back, Instructables user Ben Harper has been working on collating existing information from various sites in his quest to make a GPRS data connection with the popular SM5100 GSM shield - and succeeded.
Along with some experimental code for data connection and testing the shield on the network, Ben makes some interesting notes about the power requirements of the GSM shield and how it can affect the Arduino if not correct, and also uses our USB Serial module to get information back from the Eleven board to a PC.
To learn more about this useful topic, visit Ben's Instructable page. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you're looking for an Arduino Uno-compatible board, choose what Ben and thousands of others have done and use our Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino-Uno compatible with low-profile USB socket, onboard prototyping space and easy to view LEDs: