SMS Alerts

nevelator

Just wondering....Does anyone know how those SMS Alerts are done? e.g Text PREM to 82822 to get premisership scores.
What kind of software is required for these, or is it a Vodafone/O2 driven effort. If it was an independant provider, how do these companies recoup their money from the user?
Just something that I have been wondering about!

oneweb

Open to correction, but the companies use software connected to a phoneline. For example TV3 have a text-in music show. You send a text to a short code, that message reaches the number (possibly via redirection through other numbers) and is processed by PC software.

Some premium rate short codes (eg, €2.50 per message) are run by independent companies. AFAIK, O2, Voda, Meteor make some money from the text and pass the rest on to the other company with a prior agreement. There's a disgusting amount of profit being made.

dazberry

On the last project I worked on there was an SMS requirement whereby someone would texted a code to an SMS number, and receive a short "description" back.

Basically, the hardware was a little black box with aerial and a serial connection, which took a standard SIM for receiving messages.

To send messages the choice was either to use the box (approx 6-7 seconds thru' put per message), or to use an online web provider, whereby messages were pre-bought in bulk - and much faster to send via IP.

As we were evaluating the box the company that supplied it (who were reselling it really) wouldn't supply us with an API to access things directly. Instead we had to use a supplied "service" and write records into an Access :eek: database for transmission.

Can't give you any finer details because I didn't work on this part, and as the cost of the service was to be covered by the client, tariffs etc. were not an issue.

D.

Enygma

Take a look at www.clickatell.com
You can buy up to 9,999 messages for 0.044 cent. (probably US now that I think of it)
You can get a free 10 message trial there too.

I'm not 100% sure but I think it only actually costs around 2c to send a message. Looks like they're making a healthy profit there. (someone correct me if I'm wrong, i probably am )

mneylon

A number of companies sell, develop or resell SMS services. If you posted this over on the 'wireless' board you might get a better reply

d4r3n

the companies usually bind into the operators (o2, vodafone, meteor) over a tcp/ip connection using SMPP. they get assigned shortcodes from comreg eg: 12345 and pay to bind into o2/vodafone/meteor and send/recv traffic over that shortcode. afaik kannel.org, with kannel you can bind into operators and send/recv traffic. the other software you'd need would be software to process the messages internally. as for how they make their money i havent a clue.

hope it helps

mneylon

http://www.clickatell.com/brochure/coverage.php?country_id=141

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sms-api/

colster

Originally posted by nevelator
Just wondering....Does anyone know how those SMS Alerts are done? e.g Text PREM to 82822 to get premisership scores.
What kind of software is required for these, or is it a Vodafone/O2 driven effort. If it was an independant provider, how do these companies recoup their money from the user?
Just something that I have been wondering about!

As someone has already said this is probably done by the service provider connecting to an operators SMSC over TCP/IP using SMPP/UCP/TAP protocols.
If you are interested in getting to know SMPP you should visit the www.smsforum.org site.

Also you can find which company has been allocated a particular short code by visiting the COMREG site e.g. http://www.comreg.ie/numbering/num_allocations.asp

Hope this helps.

str8_away

dazberry
The balck box you are talking about sounds like a GSM modem.
You can use "comm port spy" to see what kind of command/data passed to/from modem with this "serivce" program.

The chance is that the company who supply the black box does not have the API function aswell.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by nevelator
Just wondering....Does anyone know how those SMS Alerts are done? e.g Text PREM to 82822 to get premisership scores.

I’ll try to answer a few points raised while admittedly whoring myself a little

What you’ve described are premium rate SMS (a UK one at that ROI short codes begin with the digit 5), whereby a user texts (using a keyword to identify the service) a request for a service, receives a response (either text or 8-bit) and is charged a premium rate.

Premium rate SMS short codes are generally hooked up to the individual mobile operator SMSC’s over TCP/IP (specifically SMPP over a VPN). Connection fees tend to be considerable, thus most will connect via a service provider who will share a short code using keywords to differentiate the different services. Third parties typically will be able to connect using nothing more complex than HTTP/HTTPS POST.

My company offers this service if you want to contact me for further information via PM.

Providers such as Clickatell generally provide outgoing SMS. They don’t really handle incoming requests (even when they do, it invariable involves texting an international number). Wholesale prices of SMS can actually go below € 0.02, but would require bulk buying of over 100,000 SMS at a time for such prices. Additionally, reliability is an issue, as most of these cheaper providers will tend to go bust on a regular basis from my experience.

Again, my company can provide this service if you want to contact me for further information via PM.

Finally, vis-a-vi the use of a GSM modem, it’s easy enough to develop a 2-way application for them as they all use the standard SMS AT commands - for basic texting, all you’ll ever need of these are AT+CMGF, AT+CMGL and AT+CMGS - of course you’ll also need some experience in comm port programming.

Kannel is also widely used for connecting to either GSM modems or SMSC’s, although I’ve found it to be a bit flakey if running on Win32 as it’s not native to it (the Win32 version of Kannel is a CygWin port). Also, last time I checked, the operators did not consider it robust enough for direct connectivity to their SMSC’s.

Anyhow, hope this helped.

dmd

Whatya mean sms alerts? Define what you want?

If you want email to sms, vodafone could probably do it, if you want a basic sending out service get an sms modem, lots of software around for those, and it's simple to write your own anyway. If you want a VPN into an operator with a short code, you'd be paying in the five figures, and get kannel or roll your own, lots of SMPP API's out there.

LoBo

Corinthian has covered most of it there - there are quite a few Irish companies that do this sort of thing and have shortcodes etc etc, but for things like text alerts you might find the networks themselves (o2/voda/meteor) providing it as a service for their customers (at a price!).

Regarding how do these companies recoup their money, they can either hope revenue share from premium text prices cover it (eg, 30c is the price to a consumer on a 53xxx shortcode) which is fairly unlikely in Ireland unless they screw the consumer pricewise, or they can charge a business to run the service (eg, Vodafone or the like) and make a fixed price that way.

Anyone else here in the wireless sector in ireland?

dmd

Well, it depends on what you want to do and the money behind you. If you get a direct VPN to any provider, you'll make a hell of allot more of the cut, however as I said, you'd be looking at a five figure fee to set that up.

The other choices would be to use some place like http://www.mperium.com/ (I don't work there/ know anybody there, just heard of people using it) who basically already have a connection and cut you in on what they'll make from your service.