Raspberry Pi 3 today has only Wi-Fi connectivity, but soon it will also be able to handle low-throughput cellular communications and let users control devices over long distances.
Altair has completed testing of its ALT1160 Category 1 LTE chip on Raspberry Pi, and is making it available, a company representative said. That's significant, as it will bring much-needed, long-range communications to the popular board computer.
The LTE chip is ready for sale by Altair and its partners, a company representative said. The chip will be included in various third-party add-on LTE expansion boards and sensor modules for Raspberry Pi; otherwise, Altair will take volume orders for the chip. Each chip will cost roughly $15 to $20, though prices are coming down, said Eran Eshed, co-founder of Altair.
(Score: 2, Informative) by PurpleAlien on Friday December 02 2016, @04:44AM
The reason why those SIM modules are so cheap is because every vendor with 2G modules in stock is trying to get rid of them. They want to go LTE as soon as possible, but LTE is also not a panacea (especially if you want worldwide use without different module versions).
Most kids these days don't actually use SMS anymore, instead they use some messaging client over internet since it doesn't cost them extra (just the data package).
That is not to say that there is no opportunity, but you have to find at least a module that supports 3G. AT&T has a list of recommended modules:
https://www.business.att.com/content/other/ATT_Approved_3G_4G_Modules.xlsx [att.com]