Years ago I did it with a old Nokia phone plugged in to a charger, connected to an old laptop running a Psion Gold card and a third party tool. Things have moved on since then.
You can get text machines, which is what most of the radio stations will be using. These are basically a form of mobile phone with a SIM inside them. However that will not give you the best rates because you will be using the mobile phone network's service and are best suited to inbound texts. Your best option is to look at SMS gateway APIs and run it over the internet. Tons of those around. Google SMS Gateway with the UK switch turned on and every link including the adverts will take you to something suitable. It all depends on what you can do with the service. Some offer Outlook plugins, or an Exchange plugin, as well as dedicated applications. It is one area where Europe leads the USA in software development, most of the good stuff is coming out of the UK and Germany. Simon. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Jackson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 19 March 2009 14:48 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SMS Messaging Hi Simon, Many thanks. All SMS messages will be to UK numbers and as you have suggested, I've seen the average price to be about 4 to 4.5p per message. Can you provide details of the hardware/software options you talk about or point me in the general direction thereof? TIA, Robert. -----Original Message----- From: Simon Butler [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday March 2009 14:36 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SMS Messaging Has your client looked at the costs of doing this? I have been asked before to do it and every time it has been dropped because of the costs. Here in the UK there are no free options, and unless you limit it heavily, the staff will abuse it. You will need to sign up with one of the bulk suppliers, but you will be looking at between 2.5 and 7p a message, depending on the volume. On bulk messaging 10,000 messages is not a lot, add another two zeros to get the best rates. At 10,000 pcm expect to pay around 4 or 5p a message - UK numbers only. Double it for international in most cases. As for how to do it, there are two ways. Hardware, where you have a SIM on a device connected to your network and software, where the message is sent to a service provider, usually using an API. The market is very competitive so have a good look round. If you can do it with hardware and your own systems then you can move between providers easily. Simon. -- Simon Butler MVP: Exchange, MCSE Amset IT Solutions Ltd. e: [email protected] w: www.amset.co.uk w: www.amset.info Need cheap certificates for Exchange, compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0? http://CertificatesForExchange.com/ for certificates from just $23.99. Need a domain for your certificate? http://DomainsForExchange.net/ -----Original Message----- From: Robert Jackson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 19 March 2009 13:29 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: SMS Messaging We've had a requirement from one of our customers to provide a facility for SMS text messaging. Does anyone have a feeling as to whether we should do this ourselves by getting one or more SMS modems or using one of the many SMS services out there? Our application (to a backend database) has 2 methods of access:- a web interface used by call centres and various levels of stakeholders or a Terminal Services logon to access the client runtime (this method allows more functionality than the web interface). We're talking about sending/receiving roughly 10,000 SMS texts/month. Texts will be sent mainly from our web interface, but this facility could be opened up to Terminal Server users accessing the system/database. Does anyone have any recommendations? TIA. ************************************************************************ The information in this internet E-mail is confidential and is intended solely for the addressee. Access, copying or re-use of information in it by anyone else is unauthorised. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Walker Martyn Ltd or any of its affiliates. If you are not the intended recipient please contact [email protected] Walker Martyn Ltd, company number SC197533. Company is registered in Scotland and has its registered office at 1 Park Circus Place, Glasgow G3 6AH, UK. **************************************************************** ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
