On Tue, October 14, 2008 9:31 pm, Jai Vora wrote:
Hello,
Im a comp sci student from Mumbai . I need some help with regards to a project im planning to do . The project involves an application on the server side which records orders made by a user . A user can send his order details by sending an sms to a particular number . When the order is received, the system sends a confirmation sms back to the user. I indend to develop the backend system on Linux platform using PHP . But i have no idea as to how the sms communication part would work . I have heard of some open source sms gateway packages like Kannel, but dont have exact idea of how it can be applied in the above scenario .
Basically, once you setup Kannel, you can send received SMSes as a POST / GET request to a page of your choice, and also be able to send SMSes as POST / GET requests to Kannel running on a port on your machine. In this scenario, it should not be a problem to be running PHP to do this.
Will this involve purchasing a service from some wireless operator ? .
The hardware setup we are using for a similar setup uses a GSM modem that is connected to the computer (via Serial or USB) and then configuring Kannel from there on. You dont need to purchase a separate service from a wireless operator, you can stick a regular Sim card in the GSM modem, and possibly shop around for cheap SMS plans. The above solution is not cheap, however, as a GSM modem costs about Rs. 10k and you would have to foot the cost of the SMSes. I have heard that it is possible to make it work with some higher end Nokia phones, but have not tested this myself. The other option is to use a free web API for sending SMSes (ad supported) like http://api.smsgupshup.com/ .
Any helps or tips as to how the above system can be implemented would be greatly appreciated.
Hope that helps. -Sanjay
Thanks a lot.