[Resolved] online paging services

[freebie]

Hi,
Does anyone know if there are any PHP scripts that tap into the various cell/pager networks. An example of what I'm trying to do is on this site:
http://www.Page-Me.Com

What I'm trying to do overall is to come up with an error-handling routine that pages the administrator whenever an error occurs.

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions.

[hessian]

They are just mailing the information. I think all of the phone companies do phone number @ their server. So all you really need to do is collect all the mail servers.

I have done something like this in the past but doing it with some of the nokia sms stuff.

http://www.christianfish.com/nokia/

[bastien]

You will need to integrate with some kind of telephony component that access the paging gateways...something like this

or this

Then its usually some simple code to instantiate the object and pass it some parameters like a number and message...

some systems allow email like formats with [e-mail] to send a page...but each one may be different...

hth

[freebie]

Thanks for the posts

As you recommended, I was able to just email it to the [e-mail] and the phone received the "text message" almost instantly. Pretty cool.

Obviously there is no charge for the sender in this case, but does anyone know if it's typical for the cell phone carrier to charge the receiver of a "text message".

Also, I found this web page which lists all of the providers domains as well as the amount of each provider allows per message.
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/textmessage.bml?mode=details

Many of them don't allow very much text, but atleast sending a short message can give the site administrator a "heads up" that something has happened and that they need to check their email for the full details.

Thanks.

[bastien]

there is usually some packages associated with each plan for how many can be received before charges mount up...most charge about $.05 (5 cents) a message...

i just built a similar monitoring system where I use a component to actually phone the releveant people and wav files play the appropriate messages. I also implemented a response system where the users response ditactes what the program does next, whether its taken care of by the caller, passed off to the next person on the list or emails are automatically generated...

I would have preferred sms, but the boss didn't want that, he wanted a phone call...😃

any way, glad you got it sorted...

[freebie]

Interesting stuff.
Is that IVR?
Did you do that with PHP?

Thanks again for the help with the text messaging.
BTW, one last thought/question. I've read that "Text Messaging" isn't really "True" SMS. Does anyone know what the difference is?

[bastien]

Hi,

Well, its not true IVR, but a decent little component from mint components.

I wrote in ASP, since it is COM and ASP is default language at work, though I am having them commit to changing to PHP by year end 😃.

Since PHP supports COM on IIS, I could rewrite it, but since I am also involved in a push to move to linux, i'll have to go looking for a java or c++ based component that will work on *nix systems and I wait till then to match the code to the new component.

I don't know for sure, but I believe that TRUE sms is just between phones, and text msging is from server to phone...😕

[freebie]

Thanks for the info.
I decided to do some research today about phone usage to access application data, and thought I'd share what I learned. What I researched was mostly VoiceXML tutorials. Basically, there needs to be an intermediate phone service that handles the ability for the user to call a phone number, and act as an intermediate between the phone caller and the application (script). The data should be returned from the script as VoiceXML. I found a great service (which is free to developers for testing) at http://cafe.bevocal.com . I recommend checking it out.

[bastien]

There are a few ways to access dbs via phone, WML is another one. Treats it more like a website with a specific browser type...data input sucks tho more phones are coming with full keypads (like treo and Kyorcera models (along with hitachi, samsung, siemens etc)...

This whole area is very likely to change rapidly and quickly as 3G phones and always on internet access crosses to wireless phone platforms...

For outgoing from the system to the phone there is also a component from www.aspsms.com. Its an activeX COM object and therefore accesible from PHP on windoze platforms. Free to use, but the recipient needs an sms account and its $.05 per msg...