Receiving a SMS message in a .NET application

Question

I need to write a .NET application that listens to a SMS message , and then react to it.

I assume i need a SMS gateway to interface between my application and the sender of the SMS.

How could i implement this . Would the listening program need to be a web service or something else ?

Please give me your ideas.

Thanks, Chak

Answer 1

You will need an SMS gateway.

Alot of SMS gateways allow you to send replies from SMS to email. Then all you need to do is retrieve the message via POP and do something.

SharpWebMail is open source. Should be samples of how to do that in there somewhere.

http://csharp-source.net/open-source/web-mail

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

You first need to find an SMS provider, and then ask them how they integrate. There is no standard way to do this, and everyone use their own approach.

Answer 3

You do at least need something that will receive the SMS for you. That might be a GSM modem or some form of SMS gateway. How you implement the technical part of “receiving an SMS” is specific to the tool you use. You can talk to a GSM modem via serial port (or TCP), SMS gateways often use SMPP or HTTP to transfer SMS.

Answer 4

One easy way to do it (if it fits your architecture) is to just simply use a mobile phone and have code on it that intercepts the message and the forwards it to your application.

If you want to use .net, you can use a Windows Mobile phone and use the MessageInterceptor class with .NET Compact Framework. Then, when you have your message, use whatever method you want to forward it to your app (sockets, serial ports, web services, ...).