Ask HN: Adding SMS Integration to Web App

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=237378

by code_devil • 18 years ago

16 13 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am developing a web application(using codeigniter) and want SMS integration so data can be queried over a cell phone in US. Do I need to talk to the phone service providers ? How does it work ?

wave• 18 years ago

Cheapest way http://www.textmarks.com

Also been discussed in the following posts:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224324

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211853

chrisbolt• 18 years ago

You can use an SMS gateway like http://www.clickatell.com/

nasser• 18 years ago

Our service (frucall.com) heavily relies on SMS, and I had very bad experience with ClickATell. While their web site looks pretty legit, their service is very unreliable (and by the way they never sent us the refund after we canceled with them).

It is important to notice that 2-Way SMS in the US has strict regulations - you have to use a short code, otherwise your service is considered illegal and the carriers can shut you down. ClickATel does not operate based on shortcodes, they use SMS modems which is basically a way to hook up a cellular line to a computer and intercept SMS messages.

There's quite a bit of details that one should be aware of if one wants to run a business grade SMS service in the US due to the way carriers control the SMS traffic. If there's interest from the readers I'll be more than glad to write down some of the details.

code_devil2• 18 years ago

Yeah, I would love to know more about it.

meredydd• 18 years ago

If you wouldn't mind, I'd find that very useful. I live and work in non-US markets, and US carriers' behaviour strikes me as idiosyncratic and frankly bizarre :)

streety• 18 years ago

I would be interested as well.

car• 18 years ago

We've had a good experience with Clickatell, but only used them to send verification SMSs to our worldwide users.

In the US, a Clickatell SMS will come from their shortcode, which is perfectly fine. No need to pay big bucks for your own shortcode, like some SMS providers want you to believe.

If you need to receive SMS, it's a different story. You could get a UK number, which is much cheaper then a US shortcode, but might look weird to your US users.

markbao• 18 years ago

If you're looking to receive data through SMS, like Twitter does (through sending a SMS to 40404 to post to your account) you'll need a SMS short code.

For a selected shortcode they run about $1000 a month, while a random shortcode might run around $500 a month, in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_code

schtog• 18 years ago

phpdev• 18 years ago

I recommend http://zong.com/

They have an API.

pjackson• 18 years ago

Most carriers have integrated SMS-to-email. If you can bother your users to send their SMS messages to an email address instead of a shortcode or NPA-NXX style number, you'll be way better off in terms of integration and cost.

This only works if you know the carrier that your user uses, because presumably you have to route a reply back to them through an email-to-SMS gateway.

I don't personally know of any frameworks in PHP that will help you, but for Rails there are SMSFu and MMS2R, both of which are good at handling gateway SMS traffic.

You might peek at their code to see how they did it. Both are MIT Licensed.

code_devil2• 18 years ago

Thanks ... I will definitely take a peek on it.

laxman• 17 years ago

I am developing a web application using php language.I want to integration sms in my website.what should i do?cost is no problem?

Ask HN: Adding SMS Integration to Web App

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