Hi Matt, You nailed it exactly on the head. You HAVE to get a first provider, to deliver his SMS. Let's say you take a provider in China. They will give you their subscribers. Then you approach Verizon and you tell them:
I can provide you roaming with China's chinatel. Will you provide me roaming in the US? You don't need shortcodes or longcodes. You need to build a clientbase. The more you have, the easier it will be to get them into the bargaining table. Certain providers, like AT&T like to have their own services. But there are niche countries, like Rhodesia, that they are not interested in directly investing into. If you have access, you can approach them to discuss possible roaming possibilities. These are fictional names, so please do not take anything for real. I am a technical person, not a business one. I just hope I can point you in the right direction. Basically you have to work with a sales/business person to close these agreements. This person has to find and lookup the contacts you need. BR, Nikos ----- Original Message ----- From: Matt Hart To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 6:32 PM Subject: Re: kannel over using SMSC API.... Thank you Nikos. Ok, this may be a little off-the-normal-topic... but, Is there a compiled list of contacts for carriers (in the US preferably) where one could start this process? It would be instructive to use even one carrier as a starting point to get kannel operating towards several carriers eventually. Also, would one need a short code in hand before approaching these companies, or could they offer up a long code contract one could use on a limited basis that could be assigned for testing? (It would be nice to try to do this without the use of a modem since it seems technically possible.) Thank you, Matt --- On Wed, 9/30/09, Nikos Balkanas <[email protected]> wrote: From: Nikos Balkanas <[email protected]> Subject: Re: kannel over using SMSC API.... To: "Kent Walker" <[email protected]>, "Matt Hart" <[email protected]>, [email protected] Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 5:01 AM Hi Matt, To do carrier routing, you will have to sign roaming agreements with the carriers you are interested. They usually provide an HTTP interface which you can access and for a small charge each time, they will return the status of the subscriber (absent, successful, etc.) BR, Nikos ----- Original Message ----- From: Kent Walker To: Matt Hart ; [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 1:02 AM Subject: RE: kannel over using SMSC API.... Hi Matt, So, you want to send and receive messages to multiple carriers in the US without using an aggregator? I believe you would need to go to www.usshortcodes.com and reserve a short code. This would be reserved on all US based carriers who participate (I believe that is all of the major ones). You would then have to go to TMO, AT&T, Verizon, etc. and setup accounts and pricing and the whole deal. I am willing to bet that the pricing they give you as a small user will be far more expensive than what they give an aggregator. Never mind the fact that setting up an SMPP client at a place like TMO (trust me, I know) can take a long time. I still would have no idea how you would keep track of which carrier to send the messages. Kent Walker Senior Wireless Network Engineer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Hart Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 9:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: kannel over using SMSC API.... Thank you Kent , I hope to reach as many carriers as possible. I understand that aggregators and such are a service that is required and need to be paid. I would like to use kannel though, and I was wondering what this buys me over such aggregator's APIs that they offer that allow me to directly connect to their services. Do I need to do my own aggregating foot work if I wish to use kannel and a single short code? What part am I missing? Thanks again, Matt ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Kent Walker <[email protected]> To: Matt Hart <[email protected]>; [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 4:12:48 PM Subject: RE: kannel over using SMSC API.... Hello Matt, Are the destination MSISDNs for these messages all on the same carrier or are they on a variety of carriers? If you are mixing and matching US carriers, you are paying the aggregator to send the message to the correct carrier. They take care of little things like local number portability so that you don’t have to track which MSISDN belongs to which network. Kent Walker Senior Wireless Network Engineer Jasper Wireless 501 Macara Avenue, Suite 202 Sunnyvale, CA 94085 USA (w) 408-328-5269 (m) 425-233-9859 (f) 408-328-5201 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Hart Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 12:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: kannel over using SMSC API.... Hello, I have a question concerning kannel. It's not that technical, but I've been reading through the list and it seems it would still be a good place to inquire. I have been working towards a SMS application where I simply need to send quite a few messages out from a central server, pretty much all at once. Probably several thousand an hour max, but not continuosly. Then a response is expected back , but not mandatory. I should say I am in the US , and all messaging will be within the US . As I have reluctantly learned, in the US one needs a short code to do any sort of business like this. Fine, so I am stuck with a $500/mo bill whether I send receive messsages or not. (The corporate lobbies here have apparently won that battle before the public really knew what hit them.. sorry, I am digressing.) In my searching for how to go about performing this task I have found there's lots of folks that want to be a middle man in this business and frankly I can't afford to pay a middle man to do this sort of business. This lead me to kannel. I enjoy working through my linux server at home, and it seems like it can cut out a middle man at least to some extent - I think. If I am on track, then I see that one still needs a SMSC connection, that charges per SMS, and the short code is by law, so there's really no way around most of it. Now, these commercial SMSCs have their own APIs (e..g. clickatell) to connect and transfer the text messages that can work fairly straight forwardly. Personally I don't like giving them any more reason to exist than I have too, and very much like the idea of having something like kannel to chop out whatever part they have in this game. Utilizing my linux box is an even better plus. My question is finally, what does kannel do that the commercial SMSC APIs cannot do for the small intities, like myself, that just want to send and receive lots of texts as simply (and of course cheaply) as possible? Sorry this is so long winded, I promise any additional replies won't be! -Matt
