Patent ID: 8094010

Claim:
A programmable communicator device comprising: a wireless communications circuit for communicating through an antenna over a communications network; an identity module for storing a unique identifier that is unique to the programmable communicator device; a programmable interface for establishing a communication link with at least one monitored technical device; a processing module for authenticating an at least one transmission sent from a programming transmitter and received by the programmable communicator device, the at least one transmission including a coded number and at least one telephone number or Internet Protocol (IP) address corresponding to an at least one monitoring device, wherein the processing module authenticates the at least one transmission by determining if the at least one transmission contains the coded number, the processing module authenticating the at least one transmission if the transmission includes the coded number; a memory module for storing the at least one telephone number or IP address from the authenticated transmission as one of one or more permitted callers if the processing module authenticates the at least one transmission by determining that the at least one transmission includes the coded number; and wherein the at least one transmission from a programming transmitter comprises a Short Message Service (SMS) data message, or a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or other packet switched data message.