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Major companies often use texting to cast polls and votes. Was wondering if anyone had a civilian's implementation.

I'm completely unfamiliar with SMS servers, but in general I thought it'd be necessary to set up an SMS server to process the texts which then would bounce that to a web server with the db. New to this kind of technology, honestly if I knew what to google I'd probably be able to dig up the info.

Vadim Kotov
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Mike
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1 Answers1

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You need an SMS gateway. Twilio has a particularly simple API.

Dan Grossman
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  • Is there anyway it could be free? or rather a single investment into my own hardware? I've checked out a few but the price of using them on large scale would be out of my budget. – Mike Feb 20 '11 at 02:18
  • No, it can't be free any more than you can get electricity, or an internet connection, or water service for free. The phone operators charge money to send and receive text messages, so however it is you get your computer hooked up to the phone network, you're going to be paying. Those major companies that use texting pay tens of thousands of dollars for the shortcodes they accept texts on. – Dan Grossman Feb 20 '11 at 02:19
  • free as in no pay per volume, like purchase a short code and my own dedicated server. I'm expecting high volumes so 2 cents a message is just a bit impossible. – Mike Feb 20 '11 at 02:22
  • what is your anticipated volume? as far as shortcodes go, even if you buy one, you still have to work with a gateway to send messages which is not free. for all your SMS options, check out my answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3524742/sms-gateway-for-windows-c/3525070#3525070 and if you have questions about twilio, email me jsheehan@twilio.com – John Sheehan Feb 20 '11 at 07:06
  • @Mike The wireless carriers all charge each other to send SMS to their customers. Even if you operated an entire telephone company of your own, SMS wouldn't be free. – Dan Grossman Feb 20 '11 at 16:57
  • I only need a one way comm, i'm only receiving texts. What about the possibility of breaking an old phone and converting texts it receives into server responses? – Mike Feb 20 '11 at 17:46
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    You said you had high volume. It won't fly. Most "unlimited texting" plans actually limit you to 1000-2500 in the contract. Even if they don't, the bandwidth for SMS per cell tower is very low (the bandwidth was originally intended for service messages only), so it's going to be throttled and if the network notices they'll just terminate your service. – Dan Grossman Feb 20 '11 at 20:28
  • just a thought for temporary measures. and it's expected high volumes, the volume growth isn't known but the end result will have high volumes. that may be months or a year into the future. What is the bandwidth you're talking about? so the service provider's cell towers in areas track my texting bandwidth and will end service if it hits a certain point? im not worried about the limit, i could always just reject all texts if i hit the limit. but how does the "throttling" work? – Mike Feb 20 '11 at 20:51
  • No, I mean there's limited bandwidth in the design of cell networks/towers for SMS. It's a technology that was stuffed in a protocol initially meant only for rare service messages from your provider to your phone. If there are too many SMS heading to the one tower your phone is connected to, you could actually cause problems for everyone in the area unless they throttle the rate of messages delivered to your phone, or cut you off entirely. – Dan Grossman Feb 20 '11 at 21:11
  • then let's say hypothetically my volumes are not high at all. average teenager. is there any open source software that could take texts and turn that into script? and I am a complete noob with cellular programming and os, as well as firmware, so any useful info/links i will read. thanks for puttin up with me dan. – Mike Feb 20 '11 at 21:51
  • Search the android tag for SMS here on SO. With any Android phone you can write an app to listen for SMS messages and do something with them. It's all high level language stuff, and you can get started without a phone using the emulator. – Dan Grossman Feb 20 '11 at 23:56
  • okay, will do. And if there are ways to do it please feel free to tell me. – Mike Feb 21 '11 at 14:53