How to receive SMS "from around the world" and save in website database?

Question

From few months ago when i was using twitter, i was able to send twitter a SMS and when i go home and check my twitter page, i see the SMS i sent is on the website as a tweet. "That was great"

Now, i want to make the same in my website, so someone will send my website SMS as a command and my website will save this command in the db for future processing.

My problem that i don't know where to begin.

1- How users will send from around the world while there are different mobile companies in each country, or thats not a problem?

2- How my website will receive and read these SMS? there is a service for that?

3- Do you know any articles which simplify these tasks for me?

If someone worked on something like that before, please advice, any info will be helpful.

Answer 1

Contact your messaging provider, they will have solutions for each country they support.

In practice these things need to be agreed on a per-country bases (e.g. shortcodes etc), but the providers will do a lot to help.

Depending on what countries you want to cover, a single provider will probably do it - if you need absolutely every country with a mobile network, then you might need several, in which case integration is more complicated.

Typically they send either a HTTP POST, or a SMTP email to your server when they receive a message to your company's shortcode or shortcode prefix. But the integration options that exist are agreed per provider; there is no real standard or de-facto standard.

Answer 2

Hi I have created a web service for sending and receiving SMS messages. We are connecting through VPN to the SMS gateway of the local GSM operator: they have assigned us an public number as well as the option to send messages worldwide.

It doesn't matter if we send sms worldwide or receive from anyone - it just work :) International sms might be a bit more expensive to send.

Edit: theoretically there is a possibility to send sms thgrough an sip provider (like betamax /voipdiscount.com/) but this is not so fast and reliable comparing to traditional service.

Answer 3

Well, first of all you need a sms-gateway. This is a service which you can buy a lot of places with varying prices. Your site can communicate with this gateway in different ways depending on the gateway-host.

Now, you can send messages to the number you bought on the sms-server and poll them (or push, again depending on your sms-provider) to your site. Just as with any other sms "IRL", you can use country codes to send a very costly SMS from around the globe. If you wish to keep this price lower, you need to rent a SMS-gateway which is internationalized or you need to rent one in each country...

.. In conclusion, doing this is not really a feasable option for your small "hobby-type" project :) Renting a SMS-gateway is rather cheap though, so the problem is really in your "multiple countries" request ..

Answer 4

I've had some success in the past with http://www.aspsms.com/

This is a paid service (per SMS) and be aware that you need to pay and FAX (yes, FAX...) your identity information to the before you get an API key.