Karnataka - Bangalore

You can set up a low-cost SMS response service

Anand Sankar

Bangalore: We are all familiar with automated SMS response services today. We use it to get everything from cricket scores to railway ticket status and ring tones for our mobile phones.

Now, Delhi-based free and open source software (FOSS) developer Sirtaj Singh Kang, says that one can set up such a service at an extremely low cost for small and medium users.

Singh says that such a service will be useful in areas where status messages need to be passed on to a number of people or web-based alerts need to be transmitted. All one needs is a computer and a mobile phone with a data cable.

Singh has used an open source software called Kannel (http://www.kannel.org/) to write a program, which does an SMS service. He first started working on it for some clients in the U.S.A. "All you need to do is figure out the command set for the mobile phones. Those are the commands that enable the computer to use the phone to send the SMS. Each phone manufacturer has a separate command set."

The program can also be configured to handle delivery reports of SMS and can send or receive up to 100 messages a second.

But the speed of the message transmission depends on the phone and network congestion.

One can also use a GSM modem with the program, which is basically a phone without the audio and display hardware. An email to SMS service can also be set up.

According to Singh, the main advantage with this method is the cost, as one does not have to pay a third party to handle and sort the messages.

You can visit Mr. Singh at http://www.sirtaj.net/.

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