I want to know is there any technology which allows you to set up an sms gateway, via which users can send emails?
Take a look at Twilio or Tropo - these provide SMS gateways which allow you to respond to incoming SMS in whatever way you like.
Related
I already have a SIM card with a company that allows tethering and A2P.
I want to be able to send an SMS with a unique sender ID (company name) using that sim card.
Is this possible and if so, what should I purchase and how do I set it up?
It is NOT possible to alter the senderid when sending SMS using a SIM card + modem. The senderid will simply be the number belonging to that SIM.
If you want to have a custom (alpha) senderid, your only option is using a professional A2P SMS gateway. But even then it is not always possible, as not all countries allow alpha senderids. They might get overwritten to a short/longcode, or the operators require senderid whitelisting (basically, you need to request "access" to an alpha senderid, by sending your personal/company details and SMS content details to the operators. This is done to battle SPAM messages)
Yes this is possible.
Most of the time you don't need any SIM card as you'll be using some sort of API, most of the time a HTTPS/JSON or HTTPS/XML API. If you intend to use a SIM to send SMSes, having a dedicated sender ID will be most probably impossible: using a SIM will make your request arrive through the "regular" signaling link just as "any subscriber" that sends an SMS from his mobile, while using an API will make you use the SMPP links to the SMS-C where specific configuration can be done on per client basis. If I misunderstood something, please sent a comment.
Anyway, you have to have an agreement with your SMS API provider or telco to use a dedicated ID
I am writing an app that will facilitate the sending and receiving of SMS messages via a web application. I would like to allow for multiple recipients (not bulk, just a few recipients at most).
I understand that in order to send to multiple recipients, I have to make multiple API calls, and that is fine. The problem I am having is receiving text messages via the Webhook callback. If the SMS was sent to multiple recipients, I cannot see the other recipients in the callback, just myself as the recipient.
Because of this, I have no idea whether this message was intended for just me, or for other recipients as well. This is a problem, because I would like to show threaded conversations similar to Google hangouts, or the SMS applications on all Andorid and iPhones.
I cannot figure out a way to track conversations, if I can't tell if a received message was sent to just me, or a group of recipients. Any suggestions? I do not yes use Twilio on a production server, so if this is not possible to do using Twilio, but is possible using another service, that would be an option for me as well.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
Twilio doesn't fully support group messaging the way that you are used to it when using a phone. That actually relies on MMS under the hood to keep the members of the group chat synced up.
Where you make multiple API calls to send messages to each user, that is manifested as just a single message with no group attached. Thus, any reply to that message comes solely from that person you sent the message to. There is no group at all at this point.
The link that Alex shared in the comments is the closest way you can get group messaging to work. It relies on everyone messaging one Twilio number and the application behind it fanning the messages out to all the recipients. The blog post also comes with some handy subscribe/unsubscribe administration for the group.
I want to know that either twilio support two way SMS service i.e it is bidirectional or not. If yes, please let me know how can I implement it for two way sms service.
In case if it not supported let me know about some other SMS gateway that support this functionality.
Thanks.
Twilio employee here.
Short answer is: yes.
The longer answer: Outbound (From Twilio to a phone number) can be done with the Twilio REST API and we can send SMS to over 200 countries worldwide.
Inbound (From a cell phone to your web application via Twilio) can be done by purchasing a Twilio phone number and setting up the Request URL to make an HTTP POST request to your webserver like so:
This will have information about the inbound SMS message, which you can then reply to with some TwiML or manipulate the information in your code.
I know I can send an email to someone in the form of SMS, provided I know the SMS gateway details. Can the same thing be sent to a shortcode? Or do these services can handle the emails the same way SMS is handling?
I think it's not possible to send an email to a shortcode. Those are restricted to sending/receiving SMS only.
However, depending on the carrier, it is possible that they have installed an SMS-Email gateway, so the users can send/receive emails from their personal numbers. My carrier used to have that service some years ago. With that service I had an email address with the format number#carrierdomain.
I hope this gets a response.
Say Person A sends an SMS to a shortcode in a certain syntax. How could a confirmation SMS be sent to Person A's mobile phone automatically ("Your message has been received successfully!"), after determining that the SMS received from Person A is in the correct syntax? I'm a total newbie when it comes to SMS - so if anyone could describe the entire end-to-end process/architecture that could make this happen, I'd be grateful!
You'd have to find a gateway provider who handles the receiving and the sending of messages for you using a defined API talking to a script/application in the language of your choice.
You usually receive messages on a number defined by the gateway provider. Incoming messages will trigger a call to a URL defined by you. Behind that URL will usually be a script that then performs the desired actions (e.g. parsing the message and sending an automated response SMS through the gateway provider.)
SO questions related to SMS Gateways:
Sending an SMS myself
SMS from web application
BulkSMS provides facilities for you to both send mobile terminating (MT) messages and handle receipt of mobile originating (MO) messages.
You can request a short code, which your users then send MOs to. The message can then be relayed, via a simple HTTP request, to your web server. You application then determines a suitable response and replies via SMS by calling the MT API of BulkSMS.
There may be restrictions and legislation applicable, depending on where you are, where your users are and the networks the messages are passing through. They can provide assistance here too.
International incoming numbers http://www.bulksms.com/int/w/solutions_incoming.htm
Receiving messages via HTTP http://www.bulksms.com/int/docs/eapi/reception/http_push/
Sending API http://www.bulksms.com/int/docs/eapi/
Short codes in South Africa http://bulksms.2way.co.za/w/solutions_psms.htm
Hope this helps