SMS Gateways

Hi Knowledgeable ones,

I am tasked with setting up an SMS gateway for appointment and
vaccination reminders for a chain of veterinary clinics.

Monthly/yearly volumes have not been quantified yet and I will contact
the usual major telecoms players about this, but any input on options
would be appreciated - we're with Vodafone for our business phones
(already getting info from them), have an Asterisk server in house and
also manage our own (Linux/postfix) mail servers so any info integration
options that cover these would be appreciated.

The data will be mined from various sources with the main apps being
MS-SQL server and Access-based.

Any heads up on likely costs and good companies to deal with would be
appreciated.

Thanks

---

› See More: SMS Gateways

On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:48:05 +0100, Linker3000
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Hi Knowledgeable ones,
>
>I am tasked with setting up an SMS gateway for appointment and
>vaccination reminders for a chain of veterinary clinics.

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Gordon Henderson wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Linker3000 <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi Knowledgeable ones,
>>
>> I am tasked with setting up an SMS gateway for appointment and
>> vaccination reminders for a chain of veterinary clinics.
>>
>> Monthly/yearly volumes have not been quantified yet and I will contact
>> the usual major telecoms players about this, but any input on options
>> would be appreciated - we're with Vodafone for our business phones
>> (already getting info from them), have an Asterisk server in house and
>> also manage our own (Linux/postfix) mail servers so any info integration
>> options that cover these would be appreciated.
>>
>> The data will be mined from various sources with the main apps being
>> MS-SQL server and Access-based.
>>
>> Any heads up on likely costs and good companies to deal with would be
>> appreciated.
>
> Depending on volume, a simple GSM data terminal and SIM card on the same
> contract might suit your needs. Linux has good SMS sending capabilities
> via the command line (getsms/putsms) I use this in a variety of ways
> for my own uses (primarily to get notification of my remote servers health
> or not via Nagios) It's a serial connection between the PC and terminal,
> and you can send 2-3 a minute, if required.
>
> A cheap terminal these days is:
>
> http://www.discountphonesystems.co.u...M_Gateway.html
>
> (first one on the page)
>
> I'm using one of these for both the phone and TXT facilities it offers -
> it does the same job as the more expensive Siemens M35 brick I bought
> a few years back and has a standard phone port (And as you have asterisk,
> if you have a spare FXO port, you can connect it to the device then make
> calls on the same contract to/from the mobile users and the main office -
> might work out cheaper than going out via the PSTN or your VoIP carrier -
> which is exactly what I'm using it for, so I get a double bonus)
>
> So your on-going costs will be the cost of sending a TXT via the contract
> on the SIM card you have. Orange used to have a good contract where for £20
> a month you could send up to 2000 TXTs (IIRC).
>
> FWIW: I was looking for bulkish services for a proejct some 2-3 years ago
> that never got off the ground) and the main operators weren't interested
> in dealing direct with me as I was only looking at 3-5000 TXTs a month. I
> got the impression of "Go away sonny and come back when it's 3-5 million
> a month..."
>
>
> So a "carrier" I looked at a few years back was:
>
> http://www.smscarrier.com/
>
> You use a simple API to send TXTs to them via the Interweb. Charging
> was cheap IIRC - in the order of 3p per message I think. (it's probably
> changed though)
>
> Good luck!
>
> Gordon
Thanks - useful insight. One of my options was goign to be a phone with
a text bundle.

On 2 Aug, 14:04, Linker3000 <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Gordon Henderson wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > Linker3000 <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Hi Knowledgeable ones,
>
> >> I am tasked with setting up an SMS gateway for appointment and
> >> vaccination reminders for a chain of veterinary clinics.
>
> >> Monthly/yearly volumes have not been quantified yet and I will contact
> >> the usual major telecoms players about this, but any input on options
> >> would be appreciated - we're with Vodafone for our business phones
> >> (already getting info from them), have an Asterisk server in house and
> >> also manage our own (Linux/postfix) mail servers so any info integration
> >> options that cover these would be appreciated.
>
> >> The data will be mined from various sources with the main apps being
> >> MS-SQL server and Access-based.
>
> >> Any heads up on likely costs and good companies to deal with would be
> >> appreciated.
>
> > Depending on volume, a simple GSM data terminal and SIM card on the same
> > contract might suit your needs. Linux has good SMS sending capabilities
> > via the command line (getsms/putsms) I use this in a variety of ways
> > for my own uses (primarily to get notification of my remote servers health
> > or not via Nagios) It's a serial connection between the PC and terminal,
> > and you can send 2-3 a minute, if required.
>
> > A cheap terminal these days is:
>
> >http://www.discountphonesystems.co.u...M_Gateway.html
>
> > (first one on the page)
>
> > I'm using one of these for both the phone and TXT facilities it offers -
> > it does the same job as the more expensive Siemens M35 brick I bought
> > a few years back and has a standard phone port (And as you have asterisk,
> > if you have a spare FXO port, you can connect it to the device then make
> > calls on the same contract to/from the mobile users and the main office -
> > might work out cheaper than going out via the PSTN or your VoIP carrier -
> > which is exactly what I'm using it for, so I get a double bonus)
>
> > So your on-going costs will be the cost of sending a TXT via the contract
> > on the SIM card you have. Orange used to have a good contract where for £20
> > a month you could send up to 2000 TXTs (IIRC).
>
> > FWIW: I was looking for bulkish services for a proejct some 2-3 years ago
> > that never got off the ground) and the main operators weren't interested
> > in dealing direct with me as I was only looking at 3-5000 TXTs a month. I
> > got the impression of "Go away sonny and come back when it's 3-5 million
> > a month..."
>
> > So a "carrier" I looked at a few years back was:
>
> > http://www.smscarrier.com/
>
> > You use a simple API to send TXTs to them via the Interweb. Charging
> > was cheap IIRC - in the order of 3p per message I think. (it's probably
> > changed though)
>
> > Good luck!
>
> > Gordon
>
> Thanks - useful insight. One of my options was goign to be a phone with
> a text bundle.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Hi

I happen to be selling CellRoutes (as mentioned above) on Ebay at
present, should you be interested.

My main interest, however, is not in selling the actual item itself,
but supplying the airtime. If, for instance, I supplied you with the
Orange Solo 400 tariff on an 18 month contract (400 mins plus
'unlimited texts subject to fair use' - fair use is defined as 2000
texts) I would supply the CellRoute free of charge (in the same way as
you would expect to get most phones on a contract free of charge).

Should you wish to discuss further, my email is my full name with no
dot at my business name dot com.

Regards

Simon Clark
Business Telecoms

David Quinton wrote:

> moretext.com.
> Tell Matt I sent you!

Seconded, Moretext are excellant.

Regards

Jon