Re: Why use a SMS gateway?

At 30 Apr 2007 07:13:01 -0700 Roger Elmore wrote:
> but it seems to me that I could set up a listserv
> using mailman, have interested people subscribe/opt-in (to eliminate
> FCC CAN-SPAM worries) with their cell number and domain, keep it under
> 160 characters and then you have a text group.
>
> Why be blasted by ads or pay 2 to 15 cents per message sent to a
> gateway provider? Do the cell carriers throttle the amount of
> messages from a single source? At what point does someone need a
> short code?


The only real advantage of using SMS rather than e-mail, that I can think
of, is that you only need the recipient's phone number to send a message-
with e-mail, you need to know both number and carrier to form the e-mail
address, and need to update that info if recipients change carriers, even
if they keep the same number.

In <f16k6k$f9n$1@aioe.org> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> writes:

>The only real advantage of using SMS rather than e-mail, that I can think
>of, is that you only need the recipient's phone number to send a message-
>with e-mail, you need to know both number and carrier to form the e-mail
>address, and need to update that info if recipients change carriers, even
>if they keep the same number.

Not that I'm encaouraging this in anyway, shape,or
form, but since there are only a small number of
cellular carriers, you could "blast" out the e-mail
in the following format:

[number]@carrierone
[number]@carriertwo
....
[number]@carrierten

only one of those ten - the one that gets
to the correct address, will actually go through.


--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

danny burstein wrote:
> Todd Allcock writes:
> >The only real advantage of using SMS rather than e-mail, that I can think
> >of, is that you only need the recipient's phone number to send a message-
> >with e-mail, you need to know both number and carrier to form the e-mail
> >address, and need to update that info if recipients change carriers, even
> >if they keep the same number.

> Not that I'm encaouraging this in anyway, shape,or
> form, but since there are only a small number of
> cellular carriers, you could "blast" out the e-mail

Blasting isn't necessary, one of the database guys already has an opt-
in page set up to include the domain after the cell number in a
database when the student selects their carrier's name from a drop-
down menu on a webpage. The database would be flushed each semester
and students would have to re-opt-in. If they changed carriers they
could do the same.

If all a gateway is doing is resolving the domain, then eliminating a
place like Clickatell's 10 to 15 cents a message "credit" for 5000
students is a chunk of taxpayer's (and student's or parent's) money we
can save. We've called Verizon and Cingular who have said it's OK to
do but with nothing on paper (contracts or agreements of some sort)
were wondering what if any spam blocking they have in place and if it
would affect transmission of 5000-7000 messages sent at one time.
Might be a secret they're not sharing...

We've seen Jyngle announcing it's Enterprise service free to
Universities for emergency use, but we haven't followed up to see what
it would cost to use in a non-emergency (confirm enrollment in a
class, etc.). We have MobileCampus offering free emergency
notification but opt-ins to non-emergency stuff get 1-2 ad (read:
spam) messages a day minimum to fund the service. Then there are the
"notification solutions" like Xtend's First Alert that cost 120K for
what's basically an email client and autodialer with a plug in for
digital signage.

I take care of the PBX on campus, earlier this year I built a 24-port
autodialer for the Business Office so it could call students that had
signed up for classes but not paid. Since it has a remote scheduler,
it's also set up so Public Safety can call into it and it will send
out severe weather and tornado warnings (and now emergency lockdowns,
thanks to Cho) to all the campus apartments (that don't have a front
desk like the dorms) and the head of each academic building within
around 16 minutes. When the subject of texting cells came up, we hit
the web and were just trying to figure out why the gateways and
services existed if it was as simple as email. There has to be a
catch...

Thanks for your input!
--
Roger Elmore

At 01 May 2007 12:32:55 +0000 danny burstein wrote:
> In <f16k6k$f9n$1@aioe.org> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com>
writes:
>

> Not that I'm encaouraging this in anyway, shape,or
> form, but since there are only a small number of
> cellular carriers, you could "blast" out the e-mail
> in the following format:
>
> [number]@carrierone
> [number]@carriertwo
> ....
> [number]@carrierten
>
> only one of those ten - the one that gets
> to the correct address, will actually go through.


Good point- I hadn't thought of that. However, that might be more likely
to get you (as the sender) placed on some sort of "spammer list" if
carriers are even filtering that sort of thing yet...

But it's not difficult to determine the carrier from the mobile
number, I see a web service listed on www.freebiesms.co.uk that can do
a network lookup on a mobile number instantaniously


P.

At 02 May 2007 02:39:06 -0700 Paola wrote:
> But it's not difficult to determine the carrier from the mobile
> number, I see a web service listed on www.freebiesms.co.uk that can do
> a network lookup on a mobile number instantaniously

Does the UK have "number portability" yet? Here in the US, you are
allowed to keep your phone number when you switch mobile operators.
Those lookup sites, at least in the US, report the carrier who originally
issued the number- not necessarily the one who has it now. My mobile
number, according to those sites, "belongs" to a local wireline telephone
company.



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