jtodd at loligo
Sep 23, 2009, 7:42 AM
Post #23 of 25
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On Sep 22, 2009, at 9:29 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:59 AM, Scott Berkman <scott [at] sberkman>
> wrote:
> [snip]
>> I believe there was another solution that involved direct carrier
>> connections, but these are most likely cost prohibitive in most
>> situations.
>
> Any pointers on this would be greatly appreciated. I have a need for
> geographically redundant access to the same phone numbers in order to
> send and receive SMS messages. Even if I have to buy a pair of T1s
> that are 99.9% idle, it'd be worth it.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
> --
> William D. Herrin ................ herrin [at] dirtside bill [at] herrin
> 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
This question frequently arises on the VoIP/Asterisk lists, since
it is a question that VoIP service providers often wish to answer -
"How do I SMS-enable my VoIP customer numbers?"
In other areas of the world, SMS is much more easily tied into
existing voice networks - in the UK (among others) for instance, SMS
is possible over PRI connections, which enables "land lines" to send
and receive SMS messages. Clickatell, the company referenced
previously, is based in South Africa. Buying their service for
delivery of SMS into North America means that your messages will be
sent with a "generic" short-code, which is not guaranteed and has in
the past even been blocked by carriers. Users cannot reply to those
messages, because many other companies are using the same short code
return address. If you look at their website, you'll see that if you
live in one of a few non-NA nations, you can buy an actual phone
number (not a short code) which can be used for high-volume
bidirectional communication via SMS.
Here in North America, we're basically out of luck unless you hack
together a hardware-based SMS device, and even that may be not
reliable since carriers explicitly state that their accounts cannot be
shared, and a large number of SMS messages to/from a particular
account may cause it to be disconnected without warning. It appears
to me that carriers have taken the stance that SMS should be for
infrequent messages between actual fingers (no automation allowed!) or
via short codes, and short codes involve a significant amount of cost,
configuration, and even arbitrary approvals from the carriers on the
use of a short code. If you look at the form required for a short
code request, you'll discover that it's not for generic use - it's
geared entirely for ad campaigns.
A few years ago I tried searching for SMS-enabled SIP telephone
numbers (DIDs) and found that there was a new service available, but
the monthly price floor was pretty steep. I still have not met anyone
actually offering the service, but I'm sure there must be resellers of
it by now. It was Level 3, offering SIP trunks with DIDs on them.
Another company, Syniverse, was then SMS-enabling those numbers in an
exclusive agreement. Payment had to go to each company, separately.
The costs per number to enable SMS were fairly low, and the costs for
message transmission were fairly low, but the Level 3 minimum purchase
price was quite high (imagine that you could buy a nice sports car
every month with the "minimum payment".) I have no idea if this
service is still available, or how successful it's been.
If anyone now has direct experience with a reseller or small
distributor of this service, let me know - I'm still looking for a SIP-
capable DID that can handle SMTP/SMPP/XML-HTML transmission of SMS
messages with some decent volume (200-1000 messages per day.)
Here's a message in a thread from a while back on this topic which has
some pointers:
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2008-October/220726.html
JT
---
John Todd email:jtodd [at] digium
Digium, Inc. | Asterisk Open Source Community Director
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville AL 35806 - USA
direct: +1-256-428-6083 http://www.digium.com/
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