On Fri, 29 Oct 2010, Aleksandar Ivanisevic wrote: > On 10/28/2010 11:16 PM, Daniel Rich wrote: >> We have found SMS to be very reliable. As far as we know we haven't >> lost any messages. We do have a handful of devices that we have to >> notify via. e-mail, those don't lose messages but we have experienced >> significant delays in getting them. > > SMS is really reliable except when it isn't :) Yesterday one of my > servers crashed because an sms with a low diskspace alert was an hour > late. SMS provider when asked, basically just shrugged, mumbling > something about "queuing delays". > > There is an option to get a HTTP POST whenever there is a delivery > report so that you have some idea if your SMS was delivered or not, > really not sure at which point in the path it gets generated, but even > if it works, it makes the setup really complex, as it is no longer fire > and forget: you have to have a database of every message you sent and > alternative means of alerting once you haven't got a delivery receipt.
a couple other issues to watch out for along this road. If you setup a full SMS server, there are requirements that you must support messages from the user. you must support 'help' being sent to you and reply with information about what the srevice is you must support a block message, which if you get, you must honor by never sending a message to that phone again. another option to keep in mind nowdays, is to use asterix or similar to make a phone call to the person. This provides a means of solving the 'did this message get through' by having the user hit a key to acknowledge the message. Commercial systems that do this are still $$$, but they are pretty simple to setup cheaply. David Lang _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
