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Sending text messages via php

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 8:47 am
by Benjamin
Is there a way to do it? If so how would it work? Just curious.

Re: Sending text messages via php

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:12 am
by jmut
agtlewis wrote:Is there a way to do it? If so how would it work? Just curious.
Be more specific :roll:

Re: Sending text messages via php

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:13 am
by Benjamin
jmut wrote:
agtlewis wrote:Is there a way to do it? If so how would it work? Just curious.
Be more specific :roll:
Is there a way to send a text message using php to a cellular phone?

Re: Sending text messages via php

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:16 am
by Roja
agtlewis wrote:Is there a way to send a text message using php to a cellular phone?
Depends on which cellphone. Most providers in the US provide a email gateway to their cellphones, so you just send an email to:

111-222-3344@provider.com

Or however they have it setup. Google each provider. There are essentially four majors in the US, making it fairly simple. (Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile).

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:36 am
by Chris Corbyn
We're in the UK and we use Kapow

http://www.kapow.co.uk/

If you want to do this from your own server with your own hardware you need some GSM hardware so I'd just go with an existing gateway.

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:40 am
by Roja
d11wtq wrote:We're in the UK and we use Kapow

http://www.kapow.co.uk/

If you want to do this from your own server with your own hardware you need some GSM hardware so I'd just go with an existing gateway.
Egads! You have to PAY to send to people? Craziness!

Don't phones in the UK have email-to-phone options?

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:46 am
by Chris Corbyn
Roja wrote:
d11wtq wrote:We're in the UK and we use Kapow

http://www.kapow.co.uk/

If you want to do this from your own server with your own hardware you need some GSM hardware so I'd just go with an existing gateway.
Egads! You have to PAY to send to people? Craziness!

Don't phones in the UK have email-to-phone options?
Hmm... Mobile Phones (well, you guys call 'em cell phones :P) can do that via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) over GPRS/3G yeah but nobody uses it. We're all SMS mad. I'll organise more things with friends over text messages then I will by calling them. It only costs a few pence a message (for me at least) :D

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:49 am
by Chris Corbyn
I've just read my first post and i kinda see why you asked that now :) When I said "we" I meant, "on our project at work". Not "in the UK we all use kapow".

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:55 am
by Roja
d11wtq wrote:Hmm... Mobile Phones (well, you guys call 'em cell phones :P) can do that via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) over GPRS/3G yeah but nobody uses it. We're all SMS mad. I'll organise more things with friends over text messages then I will by calling them. It only costs a few pence a message (for me at least) :D
Sounds like a difference in terminology here.

In the US, the email-to-phone results in a text message on the phone, while it sounds like via MMS, you get a different result. The message itself costs the owner of the phone (but you can get plans with unlimited/flat-monthly-rate), but doesn't cost to send, while Kapow costs the sender as well.

Is there a no-cost-to-send email gateway for UK phones?

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:43 am
by Chris Corbyn
Roja wrote:Is there a no-cost-to-send email gateway for UK phones?
Well, not all phones support it but most of the providers allow you to send emails to XXXXXXXXXXX@service-provider.com where XXXXXXXXXXX is the number of the mobile phone. It shows as a MMS message on the recipients handset though. I've never heard of anyone over here doing what you're referring to. SMS is the more generic option since it's been around since the early 90's... that's what I'd call a "text-message" too so I just assumed that's what the OP was referring too ;)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:52 am
by d3ad1ysp0rk

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:53 am
by Roja
d11wtq wrote:Well, not all phones support it but most of the providers allow you to send emails to XXXXXXXXXXX@service-provider.com where XXXXXXXXXXX is the number of the mobile phone. It shows as a MMS message on the recipients handset though. I've never heard of anyone over here doing what you're referring to. SMS is the more generic option since it's been around since the early 90's... that's what I'd call a "text-message" too so I just assumed that's what the OP was referring too ;)
Oh, so whats the downside to just sending the email that way? I mean, if it costs the sender to send via SMS, why would you pay to do so?

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:08 am
by Chris Corbyn
Roja wrote:
d11wtq wrote:Well, not all phones support it but most of the providers allow you to send emails to XXXXXXXXXXX@service-provider.com where XXXXXXXXXXX is the number of the mobile phone. It shows as a MMS message on the recipients handset though. I've never heard of anyone over here doing what you're referring to. SMS is the more generic option since it's been around since the early 90's... that's what I'd call a "text-message" too so I just assumed that's what the OP was referring too ;)
Oh, so whats the downside to just sending the email that way? I mean, if it costs the sender to send via SMS, why would you pay to do so?
Because there's a tonne of people here that can't receive MMS messages so you wouldn;'t be certain they were going to get the message. You need a (relatively) fancy phone to be able to read these. On top of that, it's not a culture we have here and thus, nobody would bother to read the message... when I said we're all SMS crazy I meant it :) SMS is extremely heavily used in the UK. I'd guess that the service providers make more £££ from SMS than they do from actual phone calls.

I'm pretty sure there's plenty of people with SMS enabled phones over in the US because I've sent texts to people from this forum before :)

Virtually every Television competition, promotion on crisp packets etc don't just say "Call this number" anymore, they say "Send a text message to XXXXX".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_mess ... Popularity
Wikipedia wrote: Europe follows next behind Asia in terms of the popularity of SMSing. In 2003, an average of 16 billion messages were sent each month. Users in Spain sent a little more than fifty messages per month on average in 2003. In Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom the figure was around 35–40 SMSs per month. In each of these countries the cost of sending an SMS varies from as little as £0.03–£0.18 depending on the payment plan.

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:16 am
by Roja
d11wtq wrote:Because there's a tonne of people here that can't receive MMS messages so you wouldn;'t be certain they were going to get the message. You need a (relatively) fancy phone to be able to read these. On top of that, it's not a culture we have here and thus, nobody would bother to read the message... when I said we're all SMS crazy I meant it :) SMS is extremely heavily used in the UK. I'd guess that the service providers make more £££ from SMS than they do from actual phone calls.
Thats interesting. Here in the US, text-messaging is done via SMS, and virtually all phones sold today support it. The email gateways have been around at least 6 years, as they existed when I started work at Airtouch Cellular (later to become part of Verizon).

The oddity to me is that in the UK email/text is done via MMS.. Sounds like a good racket. :)

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:25 am
by Chris Corbyn
Email/text isn't done by MMS. Email is done by MMS. Text is done by SMS.