Patent ID: 7263073

Claim:
A mobile communication device for use with an automated monitoring system for monitoring and controlling a plurality of remote devices, the automated monitoring system comprising a site controller in communication with the plurality of remote devices via a plurality of transceivers defining a wireless communication network and in communication with a host computer via a wide area network, the mobile communication device comprising: memory comprising a unique identifier associated with the mobile communication device; logic responsive to a transmit command to retrieve the unique identifier from memory and generate a transmit message using a predefined communication protocol being implemented by the wireless communication network, the transmit message comprising the unique identifier such that the transmit message may be received by the site controller via the wireless communication network and such that the site controller may identify the mobile communication device and notify the host computer of the transmit message; a wireless transmitter to communicate over the wireless communication network and to provide the transmit message to the wireless communication network; wherein the predefined communication protocol comprises a data packet comprising: a receiver address identifying the receiver of the data packet; a sender address identifying the sender of the data packet; and a command indicator specifying a predefined command code; and the data packet further comprising a data payload, a checksum field for performing a redundancy check, a packet length indicator which indicates a total number of bytes in the current packet; a total packet indicator which indicates the total number of packets in the current message; and a current packet indicator which identifies the current packet; and a message number identifying the current message.