SMS vs. WAP push SMSC storage times

SMS vs. WAP push SMSC storage times SearchSearch
Author Message
Jeffrey Dunn
New member
Username: Jeff2d2

Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2012
Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - 11:07 pm:   

I am sure this answer has been asked and answered before, but I cannot find it in any of the threads here (albeit I didn't look that hard):

We send WAPSI messages to all of our AT&T phones, and SMS messages to all the other carrier phones. We need to give a board form answer to "When a phone is off, how long are messages stored in the SMSC before deletion and it gives up?"

I understand that WAP push messages are sent over the SMS bearer and in theory would have the same deletion time, but apparently they don't. I've found this repeated over and over again on the net: “Text messages are stored and retried until delivery is successful for up to 72 hours. Text Alerts are stored and retried up to 24 hours”. I assume by 'text alerts' they mean WAP push messages?
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 8018
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - 06:36 pm:   

Hi Jeffrey,

I think any answer that you find is going to be operator and/or provider specific.

The only relevant non-specific reference that I can think of is the old "WDP and WCMP Wireless Data Gateway Adaptation" specification from the WAP Forum (now Open Mobile Alliance).

In that spec, the assumption regarding WDP over SMS (WAP Push is packaged into WDP) is that WDP applications want communication to be real time. Here's a quote from Section 5.1.3:


quote:

Traditionally Wireless Data Gateways securely stored messages to a non-volatile disk file system before delivering them. Many interactive WAP applications do not require this feature and indeed the increased latency incurred may be undesirable, and perhaps even prohibitive, in many applications.
SMPP allows the WAP Proxy Server to send a datagram message using the data_sm PDU. Wireless Data Gateways implementations MAY choose not to securely store the WDP/WCMP datagram. A WAP Proxy Server requests datagram mode by setting the esm_class parameter in data_sm to the value corresponding to “datagram mode”.




Back in those days, before GPRS, some devices were actually trying to do WAP browsing over SMS. I don't think many of them got out of the labs, but I remember back in 2000 or so, this was a consideration.

Anyway, this WDP Adaptation spec defined a preferred way to send WDP packets over SMPP. This datagram mode that is referred to is SMPP specific, not an actual over-the-air message attribute.

If you're not using SMPP, or not specifying this flag, then how does the SMSC know that a WAP Push message should be handled any different.

Of course, it could analyse the content to figure out what it is. Binary content ... UDH directing to the WAP Push port. And maybe based upon this the SMSC would apply different expiration policies.

My expectation is that the expiration policies would be the same, as it just seems like too much effort to apply different policies in this way. (Unless you were submitting via SMPP and setting this flag.)

My guess is that the verbage you quote might be referring to WAP Push submissions that go through their WAP Push Proxy Gateway instead of the SMSC. Maybe.

The only real thing to do is try with controlled experiments, as any policies are going to be operator and/or provider specific.

If submitting via SMPP, of course you can try to request a longer or shorter expiration time. Whether or not it will be honored, of course, is going to be operator and/or provider specific.

-bn

Add Your Message Here, or click here to start a new topic.
Post:
Bold text Italics Underline Create a hyperlink Insert a clipart image
Options: Automatically activate URLs in message
Action: