Implementing payments using cellphones

Question

Hey all, I am trying to understand how the mobile payment system works, its all over social networks and games.basically we just submit our phone number and the service sends us a sms which we acknowledge and it in turn debits the amount from our cell phone service provider balance.

If i have to write a similar engine like boku.com or zong.com would i need to have contracts or something like that with mobile phone networks for every country that i would like to operate in ? I'm just a single developer, is it still possible to write such a mobile payment engine and may be even expose the api to allow others to use it.

Thanks

Amit

Answer 1

I suppose for the simplest cases all you'd need some sort of telephone platform capable of sending and recieving sms. Likely you'd also need some sort of contract with a mobile operator.

For just for educational purposes writing a working system that can achieve this, you could basically just use a compatible mobile phone connected to a server. The problem would be finding one that has an open source PC Suite or an API so you can build your own PC suite and read/send sms.

Answer 2

You need to get an account with some SMS gateway provider which will provision you a short code. In the US you must have a short code if you're going to charge people and conduct a business on it. Not sure about the UK and other places but I assume its the same thing. You will have to comply with various regulations, like providing clear STOP mechanism for users, making them aware of payment etc. You basically build your client (http and/or SMPP based) that will interface with the gateway provider. Your users will text the short code, the gateway provider will trigger your 'event listener' (again, either via http request to your site or SMPP) and charge them, and provide you with a portion of that charge money. You will not get all of it. Check each provider's site - they usually provide costs, and all the details on site. You best do a good research on the providers as some are good, some less so. Spec out what you need of a provider before you start your search (like, do you need them to concatenate long messages into one, or send multiple texts?) They will also handle your outgoing sms. That's pretty much it. Its not a complicated process.