How SMS works

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Dan Robinson
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 01:07 pm:   

Hi Bryce,

Apologies but I am trying to get my head round all this terminology for my MSc dissertation and you seem to be more clued up than anyone esle I have come across.

Am I right in saying an SMS service provider such as Bulk SMS or Clickatell connect to an SMSC to send the messages? The SMSC is the part with the connections to the GSM H/W (i.e the telecommunications masts) And the SMSC must have some sort of account set up with one of the network operators (Vodaphone, o2 etc?)

I have been using your software and I though I understood the whole process until I looked a little deeper into it.

Basically I am doing a cost analysis of either using gatweay software as yours or using a direct connection to an SMSC but then I got confused between service providers and SMSCs

I hope that is understandable and you can help to clarify the situation a little.

Kind Regards
Dan

Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 2998
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 09:03 pm:   

Hi Dan,

There's some links to reasonably good simplified explanations in the following thread:

http://support.nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/3257.html

At the end of the day, a message has to get routed to an SMSC that can deliver the message over the SS7 network to the subscriber.

How it actually gets there can be through a series of aggregators, operators and various commercial agreements.

Most bulk SMS providers function as aggregators, buying connections into different operator SMSCs (and other aggregators), and routing to different operators through different links.

Some bulk SMS providers operate their own SMSCs, and establish a relationship with a mobile operator in order to get a direct connection on to the SS7 network. But, even on the SS7 network, you need to have roaming agreements to deliver a message to another operator's subscriber ... and that operator is going to charge you for the message delivery.

So it's basically a complex set of commercial arrangements, and bulk SMS providers (aggregators) are always looking for the best paths to get to different networks.

All of this really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you would use our software. Many of our customers have direct connections to one or more mobile operators, and they use functionality in NowSMS to simplify different tasks (such as deployment of 2-way applications, WAP push formatting, MMS, routing to different providers, etc.)

I hope that helps somewhat.

-bn
Dan Robinson
Unregistered guest
Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 11:26 am:   

Bryce,

That has helped tremendously. Thanks again for the superb support.

Kind Regards
Dan