Perl script to check Sprint PCS minute usage

Posted Dec 29, 2004 in software

After a few incidents of going over my Sprint PCS minute usage without any warning, I hacked together a Perl script that will log in to the sprintpcs.com website and check my minute usage for me. It e-mails me a warning if I go over a certain usage percentage. I thought I’d post it in case anyone else might find it useful: sprint-minutes.pl. I believe Sprint charges something like $3/month for a similar service. Note that you need a few extra modules installed, and you need the components for WWW::Mechanize that allow SSL connections. Consult your local Perl expert for help with this if you need it; I can’t provide support here. It may well require tweaking depending on how standard your calling plan is, or other variations that I don’t know about. And of course it’s subject to breakage when Sprint updates the HTML code on their site.

Any comments or refinements are welcome. Enjoy!

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Tags: cellular_phone, perl, software, sprint

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6 Comments for: Perl script to check Sprint PCS minute usage

adam
Posted August 22, 2005 at 10:09 pm

sprint changed their website, so you script no longer workds

Chris
Posted September 15, 2005 at 11:03 pm

Adam et al., I've now updated the script to accomodate Sprint's new website setup. No promises about how long it'll last, but they seem to be somewhat stable with the current setup. You can download the new version using the existing link in the blog entry. If you find this script useful, please let me know!

Chris

Roberto C. Sanchez
Posted November 30, 2005 at 6:33 pm

This script is quite cool. I use the Fair and Flexible plan, so the regex needed some tweaking. Also, this prevents a percentage being used, so I chenged the threshold to the actual number of minutes and use that. Thanks for doing the heavy lifint for the rest of us.

John
Posted February 15, 2006 at 11:23 am

Due to the wonders of google I stumbled across this page while looking for some help in writing a script to do just this! Works great and now my wife and sonwill have no excuse for going over the limit!

I may add one change to monitor and email when there is a large spike in daily usage ( since these are shared minutes).

Thanks very much

Jon
Posted November 10, 2008 at 1:40 pm

I have searched the net and can't find any alternatives or updates to this script, which no longer works with sprint's new site (as I'm sure you know). This is surprising as I would think lots of people would be interested in this. It appears sprint no longer even offers their paid service to get regular TXT msgs with minute updates.

Any plans to release an update to this script? I am not sure I have the necessary skills to get this working again on my own.