One of the issues I have had with kannel especially working with modems (GSM) is libusb. Sometimes the device names can change every time kannel tries to access i..e ttyUSB1 ...10. This is mainly on redhat distros and their cousins. Working with phones has been awesome since the dev name rarely changes and is Mainly the ttyACM0 ....10. This makes it possible to run many instances where both tx and rx is well channeled. But good kabambe phones are also disappearing and the current ones are terrible and a mixed breed of unreliability. So what's next? Android ... Get a cheap android phone and build an SMS app that does one simple thing. Receive and send the text to a flat db or some web service.