I am looking for a Paid, Premium service that will allow me to RELIABLY send transactional SMS-es INTERNATIONALLY. Not only to the United States and Canada, but to all over the world. I've been looking around but have had no success finding one. Does anyone know of a platform? I've seen Twilio, but do not think they send International.
I am NOT looking for a bulk spamming service. My need is to send sing up verification codes, password requests, online account notifications and such.
Will appreciate any leads.
I am using twilio for last two years and my experience is amazing.
Check this out
http://www.twilio.com/international-sms
Related
Looks like you can add sms to existing toll free phone numbers but keep voice with the existing carrier. Is this possible with a regular landline without porting to Twilio? How can other companies do this (zipwhip)?
They work through an inter-carrier vendor like TNS, Aicent, or iQuall. These vendors basically all do the same thing - which is to provision and store SMS routing instructions for all US-based phone #s... these are all aggregated in one big central repository.
Example: if you're on T-mobile, whenever someone texts your phone # (from any carrier or platform) it hits this routing network that tells the message to get posted to t-mobile. Companies like zipwhip do the same thing, they just tell the network to enable SMS for that landline number, and the instructions just tell the network to point any messages back to their cloud.
This is only possible because the overall telecom industry agreed to support intercarrier messaging back in 2001. (source: CTIA)
Twilio has a private beta for routing SMS from toll-free numbers. You can DIY, just a little more work.
Updated answer: it is now possible to SMS host an existing landline, toll-free, or in some cases an existing VoIP phone number via Twilio. The voice routing and voice provider will not change.
Note that you cannot "roll your own" functionality today to make this happen because you need permission to write to the NetNumber database. And you're not going to be able to get permission to do so as an individual.
I am following the instructions on https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-i-try-twilios-global-sms-without-upgrading
However, in Step 2 Give your account calling permission, the countries are quite limited. Does this mean that I cannot set up my Twilio API with a USA number and text to Thailand? It appears that texting to Thailand is not the issue, but rather the ability to call to verify the number to begin with.
In Step 3, "Verify the phone number where you will be sending SMS messages." Does this mean that I can only text to numbers that have been manually verified through this website? What if I want to import a spreadsheet of my contacts that I want to send SMS to? It would be nice to be able to enroll new numbers via an API.
Finally, does upgrading help any solve any of these roadblocks to send SMS from USA to internationally? If not, any recommendations of other services with good APIs?
Thanks for reading and pitching in!
Under the free trial account, you will have to verify every number to use Twilio's service. Upgrading and paying removes the verification requirement.
As quoted from Twilio support when I contacted them to ask this question:
When you upgrade your account, you are free to send SMS anyone,
without needing to verify the phone number.
The docs state "Please note, all Twilio SMS-capable numbers can be used to send SMS to other countries."
And then in small print at the bottom, it negates that optimistic statement with..
"Note: While global SMS enabled numbers can generally be used to reach other international destinations, using such numbers to reach +1 destinations (US and Canada) is not supported."
But it means that international numbers can't SMS to the USA or Canada.
I'm working on a web service that would use an SMS gateway to receive instructions from customers. Since this would be a commercial product I would like to implement a safeguard to protect our system from SMS spoofs. I don't want people impersonating others by spoofing their number.
I've noticed that Twitter allows people to tweet through text messages, how can they make sure that messages are actually genuine?
Is this possible, and if so how do I accomplish this? Or should I ignore this and just deal with it through support should they get through.
How do users spoof their numbers? Every service I've seen that allows users to interact from their phone requires a validation process first (like this). And carriers won't let you send messages through their system from a device they don't know. SMS gateways also provide safeguards to prevent spoofing. So I'm not sure how big a problem this will be for you. I would worry about it once you start encountering it.
Unfortunately with services like Spoofcard it is sometimes possible for someone to spoof an sms message. Spoofcard even works in the US even though US carriers have historically been better at blocking spoofed text messages. You can try it yourself at their site. I was able to spoof a text message to/from a tmobile number.
The solution is to implement a verfication question/text for the user to answer but this will cost you/them an additional text message.
Fogmo, a popular SMS spoofing site, allow you to contact them and add any number to a 'blacklist'. This would ensure that your customers' phones won't be spoofed to, or from. It's well worth contacting them (and similar sites) to request this.
We've been asked by a customer whether it is possible to send a free text message to a subscriber. They would like to know if there is a way to not charge the recipient for an inbound text message?
We work with a couple text messaging services and I don't see that as an option. My assumption is that you would need to partner with each carrier and send the message from their system in order to accomplish this.
Are there any 3rd party service providers that have this capability?
In the United States the recipient is responsible for delivery charges, while the sender is responsible for sending charges. In Europe the sender is responsible for both.
Using online mechanisms the sender is generally not paying anything. However with Verizon I believe in the U.S. you will be charged for sending to someone's inbox no matter how you send it.
So unfortunately to answer your question: If you are in the U.S. there is no way unless you call up the carrier directly and offer to assume the delivery charge if the recipient does not have unlimited text messaging as far as I am aware.
Apparently this is possible. You need a provider that supports Free to End User (FTEU) messages, such as mBlox. There are a few of them out there, but some do not support all carriers yet (I'm not sure if mBlox does or not, we're waiting to hear from them).
Free mobile messaging for end user
Another provider and interesting project we are looking into is Private Label SMS they appear to have the ability to send FTEU messages as well, in addition to other standard text messaging services.
Not this is country and carrier specific.
In Europe the receiver of a cell phone call or SMS is never charged.
In the US I am charged for receiving on my PAYG plan but not on my monthly plan, the sender has no way of knowing what plan I am on.
It is possible to send Free to End Use Text Messages.....it's not easy to come by as processes need to be in place with each carrier to enable this. In effect, the originator of the TXT MSG will bare both costs - sender/receiver. This only makes sense where you as a Vendor want to be conscious of any costs to be incurred by your consumers. As well, it can be quite effective in minimizing the number of Opt-Outs from these TXT campaigns as your users won't be discouraged by the disclaimer on the MSG "STD RATES MAY APPLY".
In the UK it's standard 10p to send a message and recipient pays nothing, as it should be. We in the UK can buy a text bundle like for around £5 and this gives you cheaper texts and some providers here give you free txt messages every month anyway
Do all cell companies have open APIs that allow you to send SMS messages like Twitter does?
Do you have to pay to do this?
Many (most?) mobile companies have email gateways allowing you to send an SMS. For AT&T I believe it's phonenumber#text.att.net, but each provider will have a different address.
This wikipedia article summaries it pretty well. Some cell companies have easy formats. For example, Verizon uses number#vtext.com.
It depends what country you're in.
In the UK to pay to send - receiving is free.
Take a look at messagepub. They provide an easy API so that you can send SMS messages from your application.
If you want a reliable solution then yes you will have to pay for it, there are some limited free versions.
We used Clickatell with an earlier project http://www.clickatell.com/developers.php
It gets a bit more complicated. E-mail gateways may work for some carriers, but not others. As noted, it's based on your cell carrier, what we can the aggregator, and possibly a third-party "intercarrier". However, it also depends on volume. If you're just sending the occasional SMS via e-mail, it certainly can work, but, it's occasional in use, and you don't get the confirmations that your phone normally sees. For volume transfers of messages, you typically need to talk to your carrier about access to their "SMSC gateway". The SMSC gateway speaks an internet protocol (SMPP) to transfer messages from your app, into the carrier clouds. It it designed for volume, and you get response codes for your messages.