“Having mastered the FON808 (2G) variant, I thought that given the demise of the 2G network in the UK, we really should look at something a little more recent. hence buying the Fona808 3G.
The package is pretty much the same as the 2G version, however the pins are in a slightly different order.
Onto the modem, I found that it took a long time to register on the mobile network, probably around 45 seconds. Possibly that is something to do with the 3G network. Not ideal, but certainly not a major issue.
However, my real stick point with this has been the GPS. These guys were out of stock of the active GPS antenna, so I purchased one from from another supplier instead. With the unit on my desk and the bias link on the board soldered, I rarely get a GPX fix. All the other IOT devices I have played with have no problem. Putting the unit on the window shelf is better, but still it took a good 2 minutes of searching before the SIMCom application found itself.
I did look at assisted GPS, but there appears to be no definitive instructions on how to make this work. I have tried "googling" and came up with a few references, but the AGPS servers seem to of long since disappeared.
I am a bit stuck now , the board is ideal, but without a reliable GPS its a bit of a chocolate teapot. Construction wise, couldn't fault it and the Adafruit libraries worked with a tweak or two. If you intend using this device outside, all should be well, but for a modern GPS receiver, the results have been poor.”
“The Fona 3G is a very complex beast and has a myriad of settings available from AT commands via serial (using puTTy, for example) and not available from the library (last time I looked). SIMCom, the manufacturer of the cell phone module used in the Fona, produce a wealth of documentation but the coverage is patchy with some circular references. Also the library is not fully developed.
I used a SIM from GiffGaff and the was no problem setting up the account. If you have a mobile also on GiffGaff, you can make test calls to and from your Fona for free.
The worst problem has involved a very loud buzzing on audio. This occurs when the phone is set for "speaker phone", using microphone and speaker connected to the Fona pins rather than the jack socket which is meant for a headset.
To cut a long story short, the interference pick up seems to be much less about the length of leads and their screening, twisting, or lack of it, used to connect speakers and microphone to the module but much more about the electret microphone used. The only one of many I tried which worked was extracted from a ВЈ3.99 eBay headset!
There are some other problems that I have yet to get over. For example, the Fona does not reliably hang-up under program control. Any project using the Fona should have a readily accessible reset button.
This module is a bit of a curate's egg, good in parts and perhaps not for the faint-hearted or those without a lot of spare time!”
