Documentation forIpMonitor
Effective December 31, 2024, IpMonitor will reach its end of life and will no longer be available or supported. If you liked IpMonitor, consider trying another SolarWinds product.

SMS Numeric Pager

The SMS Numeric Pager alert sends a numeric message through a mobile service provider to a pager device that can receive SMS messages. The messages can include numbers, spaces, and a limited number of punctuation characters (based on your pager model and wireless provider).

Most pagers can only accept simple punctuation (such as dashes, commas, and periods). Accented characters and other special symbols will not display properly.

The alert uses TAPI or Direct Port Access to communicate with a modem. You can enter a password (if required) and pause the dial sequence while your phone service selects an outgoing phone line. The alert supports ipMonitor alert tokens and full control over modem settings, including COM port, baud rate, data bits, parity, init string and dial string, and forcing the modem to behave as a low-speed modem.

Supported paging protocols

The SMS Numeric Pager alert supports Telocator Alphanumeric input Protocol (TAP) and Universal Computer Protocol (UCP).

TAP is a paging protocol used to transmit up to a thousand 7-bit characters to an alphanumeric pager or cell phone. It is used primarily in North America to take advantage of TAP or SMS numerical paging.

UCP is the primary paging protocol used by European network providers. This protocol is implemented to run over TCP/IP and X.25 networks.

Hardware requirements

The SMS Numeric Pager alert requires the following hardware installed on the ipMonitor host computer:

  • COM port for your modem
  • Hayes-compatible modem that is 2400 baud or faster
  • Telephone line that will not be used by any other device when ipMonitor needs to page administrators

If the telephone line is in use when ipMonitor sends an alert, ipMonitor will retry the connection based on the value you specify in the Dial Attempts field.

The telephone line used for ipMonitor cannot be shared with a Remote Access Server (RAS). Even when idle, the RAS owns the communication port to watch for and connect to incoming callers.

Before you configure the SMS Numeric Pager alert, contact your paging service provider to obtain the required configuration details. Paging services most often accept pages using operator dispatch. The operator enters a message, transmits it to their server, and then to your pager. Most paging services can receive messages by modem, which are broadcast by their wireless telecommunications equipment. Ensure that pages generated by ipMonitor are sent to a modem and not a human operator.

About SMS

SMS is a text message service that enables short messages of 160 characters or less to be sent and transmitted to and from a pager, cell phone or IP address. Unlike paging but similar to email, short messages are stored and forwarded at SMS centers. You can retrieve these messages at a later time. SMS messages are sent to the pager or cell phone over the system's control channel, which is separate from the voice channel.