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I have been asked to design a website for a client but one of the requirements is that there is a form which includes such things as name, email, dob and mobile number once the user submits the form a SMS is automatically sent to the users mobile almost like a autoresponder.

How to achieve this?

brasofilo
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Craig Duerden
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3 Answers3

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This can be done using an external SMS gateway which will not be free, but also not awfully expensive.

However, you say you are not a programmer. For this to be built well and most important of all, safely, it might be a good idea to use the services of one.

If you want to do it yourself, consider using a pre-paid plan with the SMS provider of your choice so you can't be ruined by a bot flooding your form with thousands of requests.

Community
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Pekka
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  • Thanks very much for your speedy response, the research on the net suggested a sms gateway and I think an out and out programmer would be the way forward too, Thanks – Craig Duerden Sep 12 '10 at 20:44
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Web sms functionality can be added to any web application or website. As @Pekka said you need to use an external SMS gateway and to connect your application to this SMS Gateway. Most SMS gateways provide external API which can be used to do that. They usually have documentation which you can use to find out how to integrate SMS notification in your PHP code. Unfortunately there are no reliable free sms service provides so you have to pay for this sms service. You can check http://www.phpjabbers.com/web-sms/ which seems to work a lot easy. Their integration code is pretty simple:

<?php
$SMSLIB["phone"] = '44111222333'; // your phone number
$SMSLIB["key"] = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrs'; // your personal API code
include("smslib.php"); // we will provide you with smslib.php file
sendSMS("test message", $SMSLIB["phone"]); // function which sends the message
?>
george
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The easiest way to do this is to send it to their mobile numbers assigned email address (which is different by each carrier) then have it sent like a normal email.

The only issue is you will probably have to have a Dropbox with each carrier then add something to the PHP that changes the email address (ex. $tmobile would be tmomail.net).

More info:

How To Send Email To Any Cell Phone (for Free)

Most of mobile carriers offer free Email To SMS gateways which can be used to forward simple text emails to a mobile phones. And the good news, majority of those gateways are free and available to the general public.

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Andrew Edwards
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