I've been searching for a few hours on the best way to add sms notifications and reception to my PHP website. It seems that it's easy to send texts (to an email forward to a phone), but hard to receive them without an SMS gateway. Clickatell was recommended a lot.
But: I stumbled across a few article recommending Google Voice as a channel to send and receive SMS. (Here's one post: http://sudocode.net/article/190/receiving-incoming-smstext-messages-from-google-voice-in-php/)
Is there any reason I shouldn't/can't use a Google Voice number (and PHP) to handle my sms outbound and inbound messages?
I would check the Google Voice terms of service. If this is a commercial venture, I believe that's prohibited. Also since there is no official API, things could change at any time and break your app.
If you need reliable incoming or outgoing SMS there is no substitute for a gateway. I would recommend one, but I am not an impartial observer (see profile).
There is no official PHP API for Google Voice, however I used GVmax along with this PHP-SDK to create a website called Memebro.
Related
I am stuck in a situation in which when a user registers, he/she get a confirmation SMS on his/her mobile number, and he/she able to confirm their application by replying to the confirmation SMS, be repling like YES/NO to that confirmation sms..
Is there any SMS gateway available which provides the suitable functionality, I mean an API which takes user input from sms reply..
thanks in advance
Twilio has the ability to receive sms messages.
https://www.twilio.com/docs/quickstart/php/sms
There is a definite solution available for this. Try exploring with FrontLine SMS that offers a similar functionality, though you will have to then use a 10 digit registered number to send your confirmation SMS.
How to use frontline sms:
Get an internet dongle from a cellular company (Idea, Airtel,etc)
connect dongle to PC
install frontline SMS
Frontline SMS detects dongle.
Frontline SMS API's available to read incoming SMS on dongle and forward to your server with POST/GET methods.
Try it out & let me know it work.
Regards,
Mihir.
PS: i use Huawei dongle + idea connection.
You can use mVaayoo (http://www.mvaayoo.com/sms-gateway-features-benefits.html)
It supports Easy 2-Way SMS Integration with Website, ERP, CRM or any application.
They will provide the rich documentation which helps you to solve your problem.
You can go to that site and register and test it..
There are so many things in the documentation like return values by getting the return values.
You can use http://routesms.com/
This is easy to use and cheap. I used it for like 3 years. They have all types of API with documentation.
The answer is Yes, try Clickatell, they also support India.
Please note that this is copied answer from another question...original This question is a duplicate.
Expensive, but it is possible.
I want to make a web page in PHP from there users can easily call to any mobile numbers how is this possible in PHP?
I think you're looking for something similar to Google Talk Developer API with the libjingle kit.
(Considering that's about as close to voice and calls you'll get to without finding a company with a phone number and SDK--Google voice I don't think has an SDK).
Additionally, you could Google "VOIP SDK" and see what you get.
If you don't need synchronous voice communication (i.e.: a pre-recorded message is fine) then Twilio has a wonderful HTTP API for interfacing with telephones.
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?
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.
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
?>
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.
I want to add an additional functionality to a CMS I am making that will allow users to add content to a site via text message. The user should be able to upload an image and add text and send the message to a number which when received will update the database accordingly.
Can this be done, and can it be done via PHP because that's the only language I know? Also what would be the general outline to achieve such a thing?
You have to find a SMS gateway that supports "incoming" of SMS. Click-a-tell is generally the one people choose because of their API and documentation, they aren't free though. If you do a quick Google search for "SMS Gateway" you'll find plenty of other solutions.
Once you choose the gateway you want to go with, the rest of the process is easy. You would just handle the SMS as a regular request into your application.
Hope that helps you get started!
Use one of the many SMS gateways out there like Twilio (whom I work for, but loved before I was an employee) which has a really simple API and great documentation. There are tons of PHP examples. When you receive a message, a simple POST request is made to a URL you specify with parameters for To, From and Body. Also if you return text from the URLs you use to receive messages you can respond back to them. You can also initiate outbound SMS from the same number using the REST API.
Twilio does not currently support MMS (needed for your image uploading requirement) and is not free, but you only pay for what you use at $.01 per message.
Completing the answer by Raphael Caixeta, I recommend that you use the standalone PHP binary to run a pre-determined script, which parameters you'll get from the SMS/MMS. This way you can separate the two process:
1) Make a script and test it by running it through the command line.
2) Implement the SMS/MMS receiver software so that it parses the messages and runs the first script with custom parameters.
You can use a GSM/3G modem (or dongle) to receive SMS messages. And this sms software can read those messages from the modem in real time and put them automatically in your database.
i need an sms service that can gives me a phone number and then my customers can send me sms to that number. then posts the sms information to my website like http://xx.com/newsms.php?body=hey
Thanks
Twilio recently released a SMS API. With Twilio you can:
Get a unique phone number (not a keyword at a shared short code).
Easily connect it via a HTTP POST
It's ridiculously simple. Check out the API.
Try www.textmarks.com - they got a PHP API as well.
If the content can be public or semi-public you might consider using Twitter, which allows various ways of posting via SMS. Their API lets you do pretty much whatever you want with the resulting feed.
An upside of this could mean extra exposure for your site, depending on how you implement it. This is especially true if any of your customers happen to be heavy Twitter users. Also, people would be not be limited to SMS, but could post via web or twitter apps.