Irish SMS Service - Programming

joker77

Not really sure if this is the right place to post this so if not can someone move?

What I need to achieve is to be able to send and received SMS messages programatically from a PC, using SOAP or XML. I have an Application that I will be writing a text alert function which can also receive messages, and am wondering has anyone done anything similar. What I think I need is an Irish Service Provider, with services similar to these:
http://www.esendex.com/products-sms-sdk.aspx

The ones I've found so far are:
www.return2sender.ie
And
www.itouch.ie

I have to get in touch with these to see if they offer such a servce - does anyone know anybody else who would do this?

Ginger

I have written my own sms software just using COM and a sim based modem.

There was a crowd that had a java gateway for SMS but i cant remember off the top of my head what it was called.

Most of the service providers such as Vodafone and O2 can direct you in the correct direction as they will usually have preferred partners for this type of operation.

joker77

Cheers Ginger

I don't think I'll be going down the road of actually sending the text from the PC, there's too many variables there, I'd just like to be able to use the internet connection to send/receive using SOAP/XML web services

Thanks for the info, I'll give O2 and Vodafone a shout

Evil Phil

Ginger wrote:

I have written my own sms software just using COM and a sim based modem.

There was a crowd that had a java gateway for SMS but i cant remember off the top of my head what it was called.

Most of the service providers such as Vodafone and O2 can direct you in the correct direction as they will usually have preferred partners for this type of operation.

http://www.xiam.com/ perhaps?

joker77

The site www.esendex.com seem to offer a really good deal, 25 euro a month (line rental on the virtual phone number), really good web interfaces and SDKs, and 7.5p a text. The only thing is that they only offer a +44 number, which isn't a huge problem but I'd prefer the +353 as it'll be only Irish customers using it.

www.return2sender.ie sent me a mail saying they charge 625 for initial setup (?), and 100 a month after that (do they just pick this figure out of the air?). Bit p*ssed off with that price, would always go for an Irish company first, but not prepared to pay silly money for it......

gerryjuice

If you like you could set up an acc with clikatel (a south african company) www.clickatel.com
and send messages using a HTTP Post. there is no fee for setting up. 5c per message sent.
And to receive messges just hook a mobile to the pc through a usb connection, and develop a console app which takes any new messages off the mobile every 5 seconds.
Its not using SOAP or XML, but its not going to cost you an arm and a leg either.

joker77

Cheers for that gerryjuice but I really need something that is independent of the actual mobile phone. I know it definitely can be done in Ireland, the Secondary Schools use something like this for reminding parents of parent-teacher meetings.

I sent off a few emails yesterday evening to places like Hosting365 and Webhost.ie, so I'm waiting on them to get back to me.

Ginger

Direct2Mobile should do it...

Mail to provider and they send the texts.. Might be a bit lowbrow for you but ut should work

stevenmu

Click-a-tell is independant of a phone for sending, it's only for recieving messages that you'd need to rig up some kind of phone or sim based device.

Sample VB.Net code

        Dim client As WebClient = New WebClient

        'client.Proxy = New WebProxy("192.168.1.1:80") 'Proxy server if needed

        'Add a user agent header in case the requested URI contains a query.
        client.Headers.Add("user-agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)")
        client.QueryString.Add("user", Me.AccountName)
        client.QueryString.Add("password", Me.AccountPassword)
        client.QueryString.Add("api_id", "xxxxxx")
        client.QueryString.Add("to", Me.Recipient)
        client.QueryString.Add("text", Me.Message)
        Dim baseurl As String = "http://api.clickatell.com/http/sendmsg"
        'Try
        Dim data As Stream = client.OpenRead(baseurl)
        Dim reader As StreamReader = New StreamReader(data)
        Dim s As String = reader.ReadToEnd()
        data.Close()
        reader.Close()
        'catch etc...
        Return s

IIRC they have plenty of code samples on their site after you register, and I think they had SOAP/XML interfaces too. Texts are sent very quickly and there pricing is good in comparison to others, gets cheaper as the bulk increases too.