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SMS-to-Internet Gateways?

Posted by Cliff on from the cool-DIY-projects dept.

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?

5 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Easy peasy by Ratso+Baggins · · Score: 3, Informative

    Take the one from the top

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    "we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.

  2. ICQ or DIY by jquirke · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

    1. Re:ICQ or DIY by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Interesting
      What I did a while ago was I got an old Nokia 8110 phone, which I had a serial cable for. Now Gnokii doesn't support its wierd-ass proprietary data format for using it as a modem, but sms's quite happily through it. Then I went to one of the many little corner shops that sell pay-as-you-go sim cards, and stuck one of those in with about £20 credit. If you use Orange (at least in the UK) and you put £50 into a prepaid phone, you get cheaper sms and calls. At about 5p per message, the £20 lasts for quite a while.

      Of course, this was more for sending status messages, so it wasn't sending that often. It was handy being able to sms a password and command to the pc, though.

  3. Kannel? by valkadesh · · Score: 3, Informative

    You may try Kannel. Its is a free open source WAP and SMS gateway.

  4. No such thing as free SMS by ikekrull · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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    I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long