Unlimited SMS API/Gateway (Sending and Receiving)

Question

I am creating a chat application which requires that users be able to send and receive sms messages through a web interface. It would be somewhat similar to the text messaging service available in yahoo mail or in aol instant messenger. The situation is this: Given the high quantity of messages that would be sent and received, paying on a per message basis is not economically feasible. How is it that sites such as yahoo, aim, and twitter can send and receive unlimited sms messages?

Essentially, I am looking for a way to send and receive unlimited sms from my computer. Below is a list of some approaches I've come up with but have run into problems with as well. If just one of the approaches can be utilized effectively, then I am fine.

As a note on the nature of my application: I will only be sending messages to users that explicitly sign up for the service and permit the receiving of messages. They can unsubscribe at any time. This is to prevent spam.

• I am aware of software such as Kannel which allows one to connect to a providers smsc gateway. However, this adds the risk of not being approved by the provider which would be unacceptable. Is there any way to significantly mitigate this risk? Utilizing a gateway provider eliminates this risk, but adds the issue of per message pricing.

• I am also aware of email to sms. However, I have done some testing with that and it appears that this method results in many messages being undelivered or delivered VERY late. If it weren't for that, this approach would have been ideal. Is there any way to negotiate with carriers to remove me from their filters (considering the nature of my service as stated before)?

• I could use a gsm modem, but even with an "unilimited" plan on a sim card, there are still limits (around 100,000 messages or so). Furthermore, from my understanding, gsm modems are capable of only sending out around a dozen messages per minute. I need to be able to send out as much as several hundred messages per second. During the first 2 months, around 10 messages per second would suffice.

• There are ways to send out ads with messages to cover the per message costs. However, this is a deal-breaker since it has a high chance of tarnishing the quality of service. Furthermore, I know it is possible to do it without such ads since yahoo, aim, and twitter do not send ads with their messages.

Answer 1

buying a sms gateway from a direct service provider ( instead of resellers ) will be prefer approach. you might get a dead cheap deal but there is no free lunch. there are other way to monetize it apart from advertise ( allowing shopping via sms etc.. ) .

Answer 2

Any mobile network operator will charge you for sending SMS. No way around this.

Without having experience in this area, hooking directly on the operators SMSC might be unfeasible. The operator anyhow will allow that only if you confince them that you will produce considerable amout of traffic, they even won't talk to you otherwise. They will charge you for this.

Using a bulk SMS gateway provider may be a good option if you will generate significant traffic. The providers usually offer web services or file based interface, so access from your application is easy. They will charge you for this.

E-Mail to SMS is rather unelegant. They will charge you for this.

Using an SMS modem (or a farm of modems) is the low-cost solution if you don't have too high throughput requirements. They will charge you for this, see your tariff plan.

So, in a nutshell, if you have low traffic throughput requirements, go for the modem farm. If you have higher throughput requirements, go for an bulk SMS provider. Before you try talking to an operator, get a reputation and be able to show your current traffic volumes.

Companies like Yahoo or Twitter are charged as well for SMS. They just subsidize this, e.g. via ads or venture capital.

Answer 3

There is no unlimited plan. Especially in a commercial background. The best you can do is make an agreement with a gateway provider. I would not recommend dealing with the telco providers directly, since a lot of your time will be spend making things work with them and dealing with their incredible slow internal processes! Rather put your efforts in negotiating better prices with the gateway provider.

In general the gateways have different pricing approaches. Some offer a price per country some a unified price for all countries. Some examples:

Per country price: routomessaging.com

This might be a very good option for you if many of your users come from a country that has cheaper per message prices. This one is used by one of our customers, since they have lot of easter European customers. But there are others with similar plans.

Unified price: esendex.co.uk

You can negotiate better terms for packets over 50.000 SMS per month. You might be able to drive down the price to about 0.03€. Again this is just an example provider.

Answer 4

Thank you all for the answers. I've done some more research and it looks like sms over e-mail is not the best choice since carriers discourage its use (messages frequently fail to send or are sent VERY delayed). As of now, I am looking into using gsm over gprs to send sms messages. I am trying to get some information on the maximum messaging rates possible in regards to the carrier and hardware used (on one modem, not a modem pool). NowSMS states that messaging rates of up to 30 messages per minute are possible on one modem. Is anyone aware of a way to increase this and what carrier/hardware would be necessary to do so?

Answer 5

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