Sending an SMS Message with ASP.NET

Posted on 16th Feb 2014 07:03 pm by admin

Often times it may be a requirement for your web application to send an SMS message. Such examples would be reminders, password resetting, and spam.Q: Can I have some code to send an SMS message?A: Unfortunately it isn't as simple as just copying and pasting some code into your application and you can start blasting out text messages. SMS is a service, and cellular carriers will charge for it. The cost varies by carrier. SMS is a standard defined set of protocols that is authenticated to. When you contact a cellular company they will provide you with a username, password, gateway (sometimes called an Endpoint), and various other protocol related configurations.There are several existing .NET SMS SDKs out there - some are free and open source - but that doesn't change the fact that ultimately, those SDKs need endpoints configuration and you are back to the problem of needing a provider.Q: OK - How do I get in touch with a company to send an SMS?A: Most often than not it isn't feasible to contact a cellular company themselves. If you were to contact say, Verizon, you would only be able to send an SMS to Verizon phones. So you would have to partner with individual carriers - then there is the pain of figuring out which number belongs to which carrier. The easiest solution is to go to a 3rd party company that handles all of the messy work for you. This gives you an advantage of sending them in a simple manner and also not needing to know or understand how the SMPP protocol (or whatever protocol they are using - there are many) works as they will almost always provide an SDK or Web Service of their own.Q: What 3rd party Gateway Provider should I use?A: It varies by country, but a popular one that is somewhat regional is Clickatell. (Disclaimer - I do not work for them nor have I used their services - I found them via Google). They also provide their own SDK with sample code. Here is a list of other ones: http://www.developershome.com/sms/smsGatewayProvComp.asp
Q: I want a vanity or custom shortcode, like 134569 instead of a phone number.A: That depends on the gateway provider. Clickatell allows you to rent one.Q: We are going to be using A LOT of SMS messages - what if I want my own gateway?A: If you want to setup your own gateway, then you will need some physical hardware are well as software. Kannel is a popular open source SMS Gateway that runs on Unix like operating systems. You will still need to contact an SMS Center and this does not mean you can start sending out SMS messages for free.
Good luck with your application.

Your Answer:

Login to answer

Other forums

Problem assigning value to variable in "IF" function
Does this script makes sense? I am trying to take the value that is set to "authenticat" a

please, need help coding this voting for your favorite car polling system.
hi, my code needs a lot of work, but i want to be able to let users vote on their favorite car, upda

using file_get_contents??
okay how would i create a script using file_get_contents() in php have it grab search pages 1-20 and

Mouseover to edit (Ajax)
hi friends, can anyone help with the code behind to get this application working, please in VB (new

Character Set Setup
Whats the best character set to use if you want every character to work, and also how do you make yo

duplicate record notification
In my database, after insertion of records, I want to know if the record inserted is duplicate or no

Only add new information from XML to MySQL
What I am doing, is taking a xml file, and adding the values to a database. However, what I want to

filesize() returns 0
I have a socket program that runs in an infinite loop, listening for connections, in this socket I h

Getting Resource id #11 while trying to connect..
So i tried using "DEFINE" for the first time and im using the variables i defined to conne

Strange PHP/mySQL error ... am I just tired?
Code: <?

## CONNECT TO DB FUNCTION!
function ConnectTo($db2con)
{
$hostNam