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PhoneFarm ReadMe

Note: This page is shared with Parakeet PhoneFarmer collaborators and is publically available.

What is PhoneFarm?

Sending out/ receiving SMS programmatically is expensive. PhoneFarm is a cheaper alternative, using smartphones with pre-paid sims to send out/ receive SMS programmatically for Studio Corsair's products.

Since PhoneFarms must be set up in the United States (since the phones will be using American Telecom providers), Studio Corsair is looking for PhoneFarmers, collaborators who will set up and maintain PhoneFarm hardware at their offices/ locations in exchange for a monthly payment of $200.

Conceptually, this is like mining crypto. A PhoneFarm is a Raspberry Pi Computer connected to a handful of smartphones with prepaid SIM cards and you get (mostly) passive income by keeping the farm running.

Studio Corsair Responsibilities

  • All hardware (rasppi, phone, SIM cards, etc) and software expenses are the responsibility of Studio Corsair.
  • After you have completed the Initial Setup for a farm, Studio Corsair Engineers will remotely access the Farm computer and set up the software for the Remote Setup.
  • Studio Corsair will monitor the SMS capacity and uptime of the system.

PhoneFarmer Responsibilities

As the PhoneFarmer, you will have the following responsibilities:

Farmer Responsibilities

  • Please reply to any business-related message within 24 hours.
  • You must have the time to set up and maintain the farms.
  • Set up the farm within 3 days of starting the program.
  • Add new phones within 3 days of receiving them/ being asked to acquire a phone**.
  • Repair/ Restart any hardware on the farm within 2 days. (Less than 1 day if it is an emergency, please).
  • If you will be away from the farm for a while (if you're going on vacation or something), then please delegate someone who can fulfill your responsibilities until you return.

Location Requirements

Once the farm is set up, it needs to run continuously since our customers will be using them to send SMS in/ out continuously.

Uptime and stability are paramount.

  • Constant access, this must be a location that you will have access to for a long time.
  • Constant power. No rats nest wiring, no lights flickering. The Full Farm will have a UPS but we want to lean on the side of stability.
  • Constant Wifi, this cannot be a location where wifi/ internet drops sometimes.
  • Constant Cell Signal, same as the above.
  • Close to T-Mobile (or alternative) Store, since you might need to pick up pre-paid SIMs in person.
  • Convenient access for for you. This must be a location that you can access without needing a key from anyone else, ideally less than an hour away from your residence.

Initial Setup

Initial Setup must be performed once per farm.

Setup the Rasp Pi

  • Install Raspberry Pi OS on the SD card, https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
  • Insert SD Card
  • Power the Pi
  • Connect the Pi to your router (connecting a mouse/keyboard/monitor and doing it that way is the easiest, but you can also enter wifi settings when you installed the OS above)
  • Install ngrok https://ngrok.com/ and run a TCP tunnel to port 22: https://ngrok.com/docs/using-ngrok-with/ssh/ (please provide us with the info it provides so we can connect to it perform the Remote Setup where we install the server and other software needed on the Pi)
  • Once Remote Setup is complete, you can continue with the Phone Setup.

Phone Setup

Phone Setup must be performed once per phone.

  • Connected phone to RaspPi and allow the computer to access it (you might see a popup on your phone like the above).

Farm Growth

  • As the SMS demands of the business grow, you will need to add new phones to the farm and possibly add new farms**.
  • We estimate that with a USB switch, each farm can manage 5-10 phones.

Repairs/ Maintenance

  • Replace any malfunctioning hardware at the farm**.
  • Plug/ unplug or restart devices when needed.
  • Replace SIM cards if there is an issue with them.

**Ideally, Studio Corsair will order these from the internet and have them shipped to you, but you might have to go to a store and purchase them. If you purchase them yourself, Studio Corsair will reimburse you for the purchase/ provide you with a corporate credit card (if possible).

Farm Hardware

Test Farm

The initial test farms will be composed of a RaspPi computer and a smartphone.

Once this proof of concept has been tested remotely by Studio Corsair staff over a few weeks (and we've ironed out any issues), we will scale out to a Full Farm.

Full Farm

Each full farm will be composed of:

  • A UPS, Uninterruptible power supply
  • A Computer, RaspPi which runs our server that controls the USB switch, and communicates with the phones
  • USB Switch to control which phone is connected to the computer
  • Some Android (Lollipop or Later) phones (with pre-paid SIM cards). As the volume of SMS increases over time, more phones would be added to the farm (and more farms would be created).

FAQ

How much is the SMS volume per device?

We are aiming for 10-40 Parakeet customers per device, this will be experimented with. ~ 6 messages/ minute max.

How often do I have to change/ add new devices?

Ideally, we will batch as many device/ SIM shipments together as possible, my goal is to only need 1 monthly capacity increase Maximum.

Didn't you try to do this last year?

Yes, but the previous version was much more complicated, had a dedicated Android App, and Studio Corsair couldn't update things remotely, we decided to scrap the v1 and rewrote the entire software stack to make things much simpler. There is no more Android app and less responsibilities for the PhoneFarmer.

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