How can i receive SMS through my web application ?

Question

We are building a web App in PHP 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?

Answer 1

There are AQL, Intellisoftware and the most well known of most gateways Clickatell all of which either provide PHP samples or simple interfaces (such as Soap, XML etc). When you receive an SMS message, most systems either call your server (i.e. via Soap/XML with the full message to a URL you provide, or with a message id which you can then query their server to get the full message details: some also provide "by email" notifications if needed).

I did use one quite succesfully a few years ago, but it doesn't seem to be around anymore.

See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/526046/receive-sms-messages-by-web-application.

Answer 2

Hi Balaji

have a look at www.txtlocal.com they provide very reliable and reasonably priced sms services for both outbound and inbound traffic.

Answer 3

you can try this: integration code from SMSIntegra

Answer 4

You would use an SMS gateway provider, someone like mxtelecom.com.

For the simplest implementation, they provide you with a gateway url where you construct a HTTP GET request which would in turn send an sms out to the desired recipient.

E.g.

http://gateway.mxtelecom.com?smsto=447898898989&network=TMOBILEUK&msg=the+message+to+send

More often than not you can also perform MT (mobile terminated) SMS billing where you could send an sms to someone (usually from a 80808 type number) and charge them, say £3 on a successfully delivered message.

When receiving an SMS you provide them with an endpoint URL which they may call using HTTP GET or SOAP etc, you would then do something with the URL like parse it and store to the db etc. They would append the SMS details on to your endpoint as GET parameters, or XML elements whatever the format is.

Answer 5

If you figure out how to build an SMS service on the mobile device with a web app, I'd like to see that. As far as I know it's not possible.