I was recently granted an adafruit shopping spree by my wife. I chose a FONA808 and some Trinket microcontrollers (literally they are about the size of my thumbnail!).

Im still learning the ins and outs of the FONA, but it is amazing how much momentum you can gain by simply following the instructions listed in the adafruit tutorial. Since I spent a couple hours due to my failure to read I thought I would pass on for some other soul, like myself, the importance of simply doing what lady ada says. Namely: 1) DO connect your power source (battery, usb +5, whatever) to VIO, and 2) if you don’t see the blue light shining hold down the little button on the module for two seconds (or just tie KEY to ground). These two things will work wonders.

Oh, and for those using OS X, I found much success by using the USB serial cable available on adafruit. I just downloaded the drivers from the product page, downloaded coolterm, and away i went. The autobaud on the fona works marvellously, as witnessed by it echoing back after I typed “at” a few times.