Cell Phones & Text messaging

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 07:40:17PM -0500, Alan Cohen wrote:
> I've been using an alphanumeric pager for years. The source of most of
> the messages has always been computer systems that tell me when they're
> in trouble. These messages come via Internet (SNPP) and dialup (TAP) for
> cases when the trouble is Internet connectivity.
> 
> I'm thinking about using a cellular phone and would need at least the
> same functionality. So I guess there are 3 questions:
>  (1)the phone
>  (2)the carrier
>  (3)the software (which I could write, I suppose) to make it all work.
> 
> - I'd want to use SNPP/SMTP and TAP or something equivalent, ie:
> Internet with non-Internet fallback
> - One of the downsides heretofore is that the computer could know that
> its message had been sent, but couldn't know that its message had been
> received. Is "received confirmation" a possibility?
> - Any suggestions?

Well there is SMS, but I don't believe it has any message received
confirmation (and some plans charge per received message, or at least
they used to).  Interfacing with SMS is usually fairly easy on most
carriers and can often be done using email.  Direct SMS interface to the
carrier usually requries special arrangement with the carrier (I have
dealt with Bell Mobility at my last job, and going in through a vpn to
their SMS network and sending messages.  Overkill for most people.)  If
you were to go to the more advanced SMS connection to a carrier, you can
send messages with links to a wap page which would point to your web
server in which case you would know if a user gets a message and hits
the link to go read the full message, since you just hit your web server
to get the full message.

Lennart Sorensen
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