I'm taking shots in the dark here. I'd like to create a web service where eventually I send an SMS by using my own hardware. I'm not sure what I need in order to send an SMS myself. I don't want to use any of the existing SMS send services out there, I need to be able to send these SMS myself.
It looks like there's one opensource project in particular that deals with this, "Kannel":
http://www.kannel.org/
what I don't understand is, do I need to get a GSM modem to be able to send SMS? Do SMS gateways (like Kannel) eventually need to get to a GSM modem to send messages, or is there some other hardware you need to be able to actually send the messages?
Thanks
Just find an online SMS Gateway. These Gateway providers are your best bet since they have handled all the heavy lifting for you. Just utilize their API and you should be able to do whatever you want. Some of these gateways are free and some are not. I've included a short list below.
https://www.clickatell.com/pricing/message_cost.php
http://www.zeepmobile.com/
(Carrier based SMS transit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carriers_providing_SMS_transit
I'm sure there are a ton more, but this will get you started.
You always need a GSM modem to send the SMS unless you use a provider that handles this for you (but they usually want money for this).
If you want to setup your own Hardware infrastructure, you have to get GSM Modem, A Sim card and use it to send SMS.
Other option, which I recommend, is to use SMS getways and use
SMPP protocol
XML or HTTP Apis
In later, you dont have to create any infrastructure and the starting cost will be very low compared to GSM Modem. You can get up and running in a day.
Note : to reduce the SMS costs, you should choose different getways for different countries. In India you can easily find getways who provides SMS at merely 3 paise
You will have to download an API that handles the sending and recieving of messages for you. I once used this in one project where i had my GSM Phone connected to my computer thru one of the COM ports. Configured the API to communicate thru the COM Port to listen to any incoming text messages also send messages thru my GSM Phone. Here is a great link to the resources i used for that project. I hope this will help. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/SMS.aspx
Related
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 read sms in a mobile and process it in my server. I think it can be done with the help of GSM modem. But, i have been asked to do it without using GSM modem.Is there any other way to make it done?. If there is any other way, pls let me know.
(preferred languages to implement-java,c#/vb.net,php,c/c++)
Update based on comment:
I am planning to develop a SMS polling system using which our company employees can vote by sending SMS.
For example, the users will be asked to send sms in a particular format(say VOTE ) to a mobile number. I need to read the sms(which is in a mobile) from my server and it should be processed to calculate the result.
I think what you are looking for is a SMS Gateway. There are plenty of services out there; like For example this service http://clickatell.com/products/gateway.php
They usually provide an API that you can use to integrate it with your servers.
You have some basic information on SMS Gateways available on Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateway
And a list of SMS Gateways available here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways
I hope to create a web server that can give some extra facilities for SMS Service Providers. Can I send SMS through internet? If its possible then, Are there any libraries for Send and Receive SMS over the internet?
There are many different options to send SMS over Internet, but most popular are the following:
Connecting to SMSC of mobile carriers directly (usually via SMPP protocol).
Connecting through some SMS aggregation service like Clickatell mentioned in previous answers.
Choice between these options depends mostly on non-technical issues:
Required coverage (mobile carrier will provide only messaging inside it's network).
Premium Rate billing possibility (this requires closer work with carrier).
Well, price too... :-)
Technically most popular options are:
Specialized protocols like SMPP (Short Message Peer to Peer).
HTTP based protocols provided by SMS aggregators.
If you need unified solution, I recommend to use Kannel open source SMS gateway that support many popular transports (SMPP, CIMD, UCP, HTTP, etc).
You've got www.Nexmo.com www.tropo.com www.twilio.com www.smsified.com ... and so on...
You can use http://www.clickatell.com/ which gives you a few options such as sending SMS one by one, or by using bulk files such as XML.
I found the clickatell API to be really usefull and easy, I managed to add SMS capability to an existing website in a few hours by creating a simple class to wrap up all the methods.
One thing to remember though this is not going to be free for you, there will be costs involved depending on where you send the text to, and where you are based.
You can send SMS programmatically through TheTexting API, They provide cheap rates and their service is really good.
Full disclosure: I work for company that makes this product.
I am trying to implement my own theoretical SMS web service (just to understand how this stuff works, I have posted a few other related questions, I think this is it).
Set up a PC. It takes requests from a website I make to send out SMS messages: a user-entered destination phone number, and a user-entered text message
I get a GSM modem, or just a GSM phone. I connect it to the computer.
I get a service plan from Verizon or whoever, some sort of unlimited SMS messaging plan.
They give me a SIM card, which has my unique phone # attached to it (ex: 555-5555). I stick this in the GSM modem.
I get some application (like Kannel) which handles interfacing with the modem and sending out the messages from my machine.
Now users can visit my theoretical website, enter a phone # and message. I grab that data, forward it to Kannel. Kannel interacts with the modem, passing it the data for the message. The modem interacts with the carrier network I signed up with, and broadcasts the actual SMS to it. The carrier network handles routing the message to the actual destination.
This is my understanding of how it works. Now the recipient of this text message will see this message pop up on their device from my modem's number (555-5555). In fact, all the thousands of people using my service will all see the same origin phone number.
If that's so, how do these 3rd party SMS applications give people unique #s for replying to messages they send out?
For example, when I sign up for one of these 'free' SMS services on iPhone, they assign me a unique user ID, like '123'. My friend is on a normal AT&T phone plan. He can send an SMS addressed to '123', and somehow I will get the message. How does AT&T know to route that to this third party service? I can't imagine that they would somehow get a new SIM card with a unique phone number per user that signs up for their service!
Thanks for all your help.
Thanks
The cell network carriers (e.g. AT&T, Verizon) actually rent out custom phone numbers (called "short codes") to 3rd parties to use.
You usually can't acquire these short codes directly from the carrier, but you can go through a 3rd party company to rent the short code. I've worked with companies like MBlox and OpenMarket to use carrier short codes. These companies are sometimes referred to as "SMS/MMS messaging aggregators," because they aggregate messaging services across multiple carriers and offer them to people/companies like you. Most of the time the aggregator will expose some sort of API (SOAP/XML or binary protocol) to access the messaging services to send and receive messages.
There may be other ways to do it, this is just my experience.
I think your comment at the bottom of your message is misleading.
Your friend probably doesn't send a message to "123" infact he probably sends "123 hello george" to a central number, which in turns routes "123" on to you, behind the scenes.
FWIW, mobile messages can appear as though they come from anything (including, for example, a word, and not a number).
Your general underlying assumption as to how gateways work (acquiring simcards) is accurate enough.
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