NYCPHP Meetup

[Keith Casey]

Peter,

My biggest customer is an SMS provider and if you're trying to send a 
simple SMS, you can normally do something along the lines of sending an 
email to {phonenumber}@{carrier}.  This will normally work for all free 
efforts across the major carriers but is not technically an SMS.

If you are looking to have true SMS capability - like where a user could 
respond via a shortcode - it gets quite a bit more complicated.  For 
this, you need dedicated connections (called binds) to the various 
carriers along with approval from the carriers so they know where to 
route the shortcode.  And the shortcode must be approved/purchased by 
the shortcode authority (like an IP).

On top of that, there are certain requirements - like supporting STOP, 
HELP, etc - that are involved at the carrier level.  If you're looking 
to do premium services, it gets even more fun.

More than anything, it's simply data down the pipe.  I'm working with 
production systems that do it in Java and PHP, so there are efforts out 
there... not sure what the licensing of the code is, but I think that's 
the least of the barriers.

Alternatively, I've been trying to convince my customer to build an API 
and resell some of the services, so people like you might serve to build 
my case.

If you have more/additional questions, feel free to drop me a note.

Keith

Peter Sawczynec wrote:
> I see that there are ad hoc free scripts/classes/methods for sending SMS
> text messages from a PHP script out to a specific 
> telephone company's gateway server...
> 
> but I'm wondering if anyone on the list has had a past experience with
> setting up a client's website application to 
> send and receive SMS text messages.
> 
> If so, have you used a vendor with servers that send/receive on your behalf
> like: http://www.tm4b.com/
> 
> Has anyone used Teleflip http://www.teleflip.com/teleflip/index.jsp
> personally or professionally?
> 
> Any previous experiences would be of interest.

-- 
D. Keith Casey Jr.
CEO, CaseySoftware, LLC
http://CaseySoftware.com