SMS and MMS with the Alcatel One Touch X200 or X060 USB Modem

Topic Keywords: 3G modem, GPRS modem, GSM modem, USB modem

The Alcatel One Touch X200 and X060 USB Modems are good (but not great) modems to use with NowSMS to send and receive SMS and MMS messages.

For alternative modems, please see our other reviews: https://nowsms.com/tag/gsm-modem

For general information on configuring NowSMS to send and receive SMS and MMS messages with a GSM modem, such as the Alcatel One Touch X200 or X060, please see the NowSMS Quick Start Guide at https://nowsms.com/doc/quick-start-guide.

To point out one initial point of confusion when configuring NowSMS to work with the Alcatel One Touch modem, the modem driver installed for the modems is named “Modem Interface”. When adding the modem to NowSMS, you must select the modem named “Modem Interface” (which is a less than intuitive choice of name).
The primary problem when using the Alcatel One Touch X200 or X060 modem with NowSMS is that each time your PC is rebooted, the modem will be inaccessible to NowSMS until the Alcatel “HSPA USB Modem” software that ships with the modem is loaded. Until that software is run, the modem functions only as a USB disk drive, and there is no modem functionality.

If you want to run NowSMS automatically each time your PC is restarted, after installing NowSMS and verifying that it works with the Alcatel One Touch modem, reboot your PC. If NowSMS is unable to access the modem after a reboot, you will need to follow the following steps.

We have been unable to identify a solution for this problem, other than configuring the Alcatel “HSPA USB Modem” software application to run at startup.
For some reason, on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 systems, the Alcatel “HSPA USB Modem” software requires that it be run with administrative rights.
Therefore, the best way to configure this software to be started automatically when the PC reboots is to configure the Windows Task Scheduler to run it at startup.

The Windows Task Scheduler can be accessed via the “Schedule Tasks” option under “Administrative Tools” in the Windows Control Panel.

Select “Create Task” to create a new task to load the Alcatel “HSPA USB Modem” software at startup.

On the “General” page, give the task a name, such as “Alcatel HSPA USB Modem”, so that you can easily identify the task later. Under “Security Options”, select “Run whether user is logged on or not”, and “Run with highest priveleges”. The other settings on this page can be left at their defaults.

On the “Triggers” page, select “New”, and then specify to “Begin the Task” “At Startup”. Press “OK” to save the trigger.

On the “Actions” page, select “New”, and then specify the “Action” to be “Start a program”. In the “Program/Script” field, press “Browse” and locate “HSPA USB MODEM.EXE”, which is usually located in the “Program Files\HSPA USB MODEM” or “Program Files (x86)\HSPA USB MODEM” directory. Press “OK” to save the action.

On the “Conditions” page, clear any of the checked conditions, so that the program is always run at startup.

On the “Settings” page, check “Stop the task if it runs longer than”, and specify “5 minutes”. Also check “If the running task does not end when requested, force it to stop”.

Press “OK” to save this task. You will be prompted for your username and password.

Reboot your PC to confirm that NowSMS can now access the modem properly when the PC is restarted.

For general information on configuring NowSMS to send and receive SMS and MMS messages with a GSM modem, such as the Alcatel One Touch X200 or X060, please see the NowSMS Quick Start Guide at https://nowsms.com/doc/quick-start-guide.

For alternative modems, please see our other reviews: https://nowsms.com/tag/gsm-modem

Frequencies supported by the Alcatel One Touch X200:

• 3G/UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA – 850Mhz/1900Mhz/2100Mhz (Good for most of the world, plus AT&T USA)
• EDGE/GPRS – 850Mhz/900Mhz/1800Mhz/1900Mhz (Global)
• HSPA Max Performance: Download speed – 7.2 Mbps; Upload speed – 2 Mbps
• UMTS Max Performance: Download speed – 384 Kbps; Upload speed – 384 Kbps
• EDGE Max Performance: Download speed – 247.4 Kbps; Upload speed – 123.7 Kbps
• GPRS Max Performance: Download speed – 85.6 Kbps; Upload speed – 42.8 Kbps

The Alcatel One Touch X060 is similar to the X200, except that its HSDPA download speed peaks at 3.6 Mbps, and there is no HSUPA support, limiting HSPA upload support to 384 Kbps.

NowSMS Support Summary: Supports sending and receiving both SMS and MMS messages. Does not support “Direct to Modem” (“Default” mode is ok).

SMS Delivery Receipts are NOT supported.

The Alcatel One Touch X200 and X060 modems do not support an external antenna (uses internal antenna only).