I'm trying to come up with a solution to this situation:
Imagine you are in an area and you do not have any cell phone service but you do have Wifi.
The ask is to have a user that only has data to be able to text a number (via iMessage) and get a confirmation code in return.
The first tool I thought would be necessary for this would be Twilio - but it seems like Twilio only sends over standard SMS.
Are there any other tools out there anyone have used that would work in this idea? Something similar to Twilio but only ran on data?
Twilio developer evangelist here.
This is something you can only do as the phone provider or network provider (using Three in the UK allows me to make phone calls over wifi with no phone signal, for example).
The two things you can do is either build yourself a native application that you can send messages to using push notifications or send messages to existing native apps, like Messenger, Viber or Line.
Related
Is there any way to still deliver sms message to Android/iPhone device in ordinary messages app, when device is outside of coverage area of cellular provider but has access, for example to WiFi internet?
Thank you
Regular SMS message can be sent/delivered only when phone is in radio coverage. However, some applications can show message as SMS following its own protocol over the internet.
Such example is iMessage (Iphones).
I believe this can be done. But it is not an easy.
You need to create an app and install it on the phone. This app should inject SMS into the ordinary message app (I am not completely sure this is possible on iPhone). The app should, using WiFi, get the information about the SMS from somewhere. Different companies like https://twilio.com or https://suresms.com have inbound SMS numbers. So, you send SMS to this "virtual" number, then an app will pickup the message and inject it into the phones ordinary app.
I cannot come up with a solution where the message is delivered to the SIM cards phone number when the sim-card is out of reach.
I have a client who sends about 5000 SMS messages each month. They are currently doing this from an iPhone, by actually typing the message in to the phone. (I think the messages are quite repetitive, and are often addressed to groups).
The reason that they are not using an online message gateway is purely the cost. We can use a gateway here in Australia (such as Amazon SMS) for about 7.5 cents for transactional (and 2.5 cents for promotional, though I don't know if this is reliable enough).
When the client uses their own iPhone, the SMS is included in their plan, and costs them nothing extra.
I am building a web-based application for the client and the question is 'Can I send SMS via a handset connected to the client's desktop PC'. I think the answer is no, but would like to be surprised. The application is responsive, so what about if they triggered the messages from a browser on the phone? Still no?
If you could use an Android phone instead an iPhone, you could create a small gateway app on the Android that can send text messages without the need for the user's intervention.
It could work like this:
The Android app would have a simple REST interface, a good start could be https://github.com/NanoHttpd/nanohttpd.
An endpoint in the Android app could send messages, see Sending SMS programmatically without opening message app
The software on the computer would use the rest endpoint on the Android phone to send the message.
This wouldn't work on the iPhone because it doesn't allow an app to send a text message without the user's intervention.
I want to know how can I build my own Sms service provider?
In another say; What is needed to have a system to inject sms messages to the mobile network systems freely or is it possible at all?
with VoIP server we can do voice and video and text messaging through internet; but what about from internet to the land line or mobile network?
How Skype, smartvoip, etc. do this?
Please give me a direction that I could go through.
You need some sort of interface to the Mobile network to make this work. Your choices include:
build a system with a GSM/UMTS card or phone which you control to send SMS messages into the network. This will need a valid SIM and contract (and the small print may say that you are not allowed to use it to provide an IP to SMS service to others). If you google 'Asterix SMS Gateway' you can find several open source examples. You could also look at http://www.kannel.org/overview.shtml, although I am not sure how actively this is being maintained these days.
Build a front end for your SMS service and use an existing back end SMS service in whatever your target market is - i.e. connect directly to your local operators SMSC, most likely using SMPP protocol. This assumes the operator provides this service in your target network/market.
Use an SMS aggregator service such as MBlox or Clickatell
I want to send and run a USSD code on mobile phones via PHP. I have an SMS gateway, can I send it through SMS or do I need to purchase an other service? I have been searching the net and didn't come to a solution that's perfect for me.
Some company's support told me that I can send it using XML in SMS.
The USSD command I want to run is :
1. *21*___SOME NO____#
2. #21#
USSD and SMS are two different services that are both supported in 3gpp mobile protocols.
Check your documentation, or ask a support engineer at the organisation that supplies your SMS gateway to know if they also support USSD. If yes, then they should give you details on how to use it.
The interface to a USSD gateway is not standard, it will depend on how the individual company has implemented it.
A quick search on Google for the words "ussd gateway" brings up several USSD products.
We are building a web app that should be able to receive SMS messages and store the information contained in it in database.
Which methods have you used? Which service providers are out there that can assist?
http://www.clickatell.com/ are massive and it works exactly like it says on the tin. You pay for a phone number and sms messages sent to that end up hitting a URL on your site to deliver them just like someone posting a form.
I'd recommend using a service such as TextMarks. TextMarks is free, and lets you pick a keyword for your service that allows users to route messages to you through TextMarks' shared short code, 41411. The only catch here is that they reserve 20 characters in each message for short advertisements to pay for their services.
If you ever outgrow their ad-sponsored services, you can upgrade to a premium version that doesn't include ads.
Another (cheaper) alternative is to have your users send text messages to an email address like sms#yourapp.com. Then you can have a background thread that's looking at the email account and puts the messages into the database.
I've implemented and tested this approach with major US carriers with everything from smart phones to pay-as-you-go "crappy" phones without a hitch.
When the user sends the SMS to your email address you get the SMS email gateway address (e.g. 8055551234#vtext.net) so you can send response messages.
The only downside is that it's a bit more difficult to find the "send to email address" options on most phones, but it is (basically) free for you. This is especially helpful for reducing costs while testing out workflows. Those ~3 cents for each SMS add up pretty quickly, especially during automated testing.
When you want to support SMS numbers you can configure most SMS gateways to send an email to an address, so you won't have to change your infrastructure to support a "real" SMS messages.
I haven't done it yet, but I guess you could also setup an Asterisk system on your server, then get a regular VOIP acccount (which Asterisk hooks into) and configure the Asterisk server to forward all SMS to your application. This article might help setting up the Asterisk server.
I've had experience using MX Telecom as an SMS Gateway. Essentially they posted data to our web service every time we received an incoming SMS. The application in question was also sending SMS messages as well and we just did an http GET to a web page of theirs.
I can't speak to the business end (i.e. cost), as I was just in charge of implementing the features - but working with an SMS gateway is really very simple from a development perspective.
+1 on sebastian i was jsut writting pretty much the same
if you are working with ruby you might want to have a look at adhearsion
You can use SMS gateway software which will receive SMS messages through a GSM modem or 3G dongle connected to a PC and POST them to your website via HTTP. Eg: this software