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SMS-to-Internet Gateways?
starrynights asks: "I am planning to make an on-campus communication system and i need to find a free SMS Gateway. Can anyone give me any information on this?" Interesting thought. It might make an even better do-it-yourself type project. What would you need, aside from a computer with an internet connection, to build something like this on your own?
Is mtnsms.com not free any more?
:P
Sorry, I don't really do the mad SMS thing, but I thought it was still free for limited messages.
Failing that, google is your friend as usual with a lot of these q's.
Prisoner #655321
Take the one from the top
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
You could use the ICQ SMS bridge (people have written code to use these - they support most GSM networks).
Alternatively, depending on your SMS costs, you could build one yourself. You can use almost any phone and connect it to a PC with the appropriate cable, or use IrDA with the more expensive phones. Most of the phones that support IrDA can be controlled using simple AT-style commands over virtual serial console, in addition to the proprietary interfaces specific to each manufacturer. There is a great deal of multi-platform software/libraries available - do a search of "SMS" on Freshmeat. Alternatively, you could write your own software.
The AT-style commands can be found in section 07.07 of the GSM specifications.
--jquirke
You may try Kannel. Its is a free open source WAP and SMS gateway.
The phone companies have found that, despite SMS using no actual bandwidth on their networks, that it is a popular service, and is hence worth a lot of money.
Might as well forget 'free', the days of free SMS via MTN etc. are pretty much over.
Here in New Zealand, we pay 10-20c per SMS message, typically 20c per message unless you have some volume deal with a telco.
I use a Siemens M20 modem to handle sending and receiving SMS messages as part of my system monitoring, and it is not very expensive, due to the low volume. I use the excellent SMS-Tools package (a search on freshmeat will find this) and the system invokes a perl script upon sending or receipt of an SMS, making it extremely easy to do just about anything I want - i.e. SMS-to-email/web gateway is trivial.
Open it up to the 'public' though, and costs would start to climb hugely. A volume of 1000 messages per day would cost me from $3000-$6000 a month here, which, for the actual bandwidth supplied is rather extortionate.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
First SMS will not be free. If you are looking for reading and writing SMSes using a PC and Cell phone use http://www.gnokii.org.
Using this you can easily have a SMS Email Gateway or sms to internet gateway. You will be able to send/receive emails over SMS using this, though you have to write small scripts (If you want I can send mine). We had done a small project of controlling Electrical Devices using SMS.
You send SMS like "Lights on" to a cell phone which is connected to PC using Data Cable. Poll this Cell phone using Gnokii which will let you read the content of the SMS. Depending on the command you can take the action. For controlling Electrical Device we created a circuit (Search google for Coffee Cup) which was controled by PC parallel port. So when you receive a SMS saying "Lights On" you write one character to (numeric zero will send zero volt) parallel port which will generate 5 Volt current and in turn switch on lights.