Globalstar Product Management – Technical Support

How can I determine the ESN (Electronic Serial Number) of my Qualcomm phone or modem?

Answer:  You can view the ESN in the following ways

1. Via Label:  The ESN is printed on a label on the phone or modem, in both hex and decimal formats.
2. Via Menu:  Via the on-screen menus of the GSP-1700 and GSP-1600 handheld phones
3. Via AT Command:  In addition, it is possible to read the internal ESN from the data port of the phone using the AT+GSN command.  The AT+GSN command will return the hexadecimal version of the ESN.

Decimal ESN vs Hex ESN:

1. You can distinguish between a hex and a decimal ESN value by the length of the ESN or by its alphanumeric content.
   • The decimal ESN is 11 digits
   • The hex ESN is 8 alphanumeric characters.
2. Both forms of the ESN represent the same exact ESN.
3. Both versions are displayed on the label so that even if some of the characters on the label are worn off over time, it will usually still be possible to easily determine the ESN of the phone from the label.
4. If it is not possible to determine the ESN from the printed label, you can use one of the electronic retrieval methods (mentioned below) to obtain the ESN.

ESN fields — Manufacturer Code and Phone ID:  The ESN is comprised of two concatenated information fields, as follows:

• Digits 1-3 of the Decimal ESN ==> Manufacturer Code
  • 179 for the original Qualcomm phones
  • 116 for all other Qualcomm phones
• Digits 4-11 of the Decimal ESN ==>  Unique Code for the phone or modem

Conversion from Decimal ESN to Hex, or from Hex ESN to Decimal:

You can use Microsoft Excel to convert between the hex ESN and the decimal ESN, as long as you have the Analysis Toolpak installed in Excel.

1. Install the Analysis Toolpak for Excel
   • The Analysis Toolpak is provided by Microsoft along with the Excel installation disk, but it is not part of the default installation.
2. Use the following formulas to convert between Hex and Decimal:

Hex to Decimal Conversion Formula:
Decimal_ESN = HEX2DEC(LEFT(hex_value,2))&TEXT(HEX2DEC(RIGHT(hex_value,6)),”00000000″)

Decimal to Hex ESN Conversion Formula:
Hex_ESN = DEC2HEX(LEFT(decimal_value,3),2)&DEC2HEX(RIGHT(decimal_value,8),6)