I'm looking to setup an Email2SMS service on my website and was wondering if anyone knows how I can set it up so that people can send messages from my website for free. If I am correct, all I need is a script. What are the disadvantages of Email2SMS over a normal paid SMS gateway? I'm really new to this so any info would be appreciated, no matter how small.
For free, probably not. And you're saying you want user's to be able to send messages from your website, right? So do do you actually want email to SMS, or a from on your website to SMS? If you want the form, you can use TM4B's service (which is not free, but not very expensive, in my opinion), and a PHP class that I wrote, which you can find here: http://www.bytemycode.com/snippets/snippet/647/
Being able to send SMS requires speciallist hardware and you have to pay the mobile network your hardware connects to per message sent. You can send SMS from emails or from your website (thought I am confused over which of the two you are actually wanting to do) but you will be charged per message sent - whilst there are sites that allow its users to send for free (obviously hoping to cover the costs through advertising revenue) I have never seen one that offers an API/ Web Service or equiv for other sits to use. Can you offer it for free? Well you can but you will be quickly out of pocket unless you can work out how to successfully monitorise your site in another way.
No, there's no hardware needed. The class above is pure PHP and sends the SMS via HTTP request to TM4B, and they deliver it from there.
Ya one more thing you can do is to get a Script where you can send Mails. Every Cellular Company assigns a Special Email Address to the Phone Recipent as well such as. T-Mobile: Virgin Mobile: Cingular: Sprint: Verizon: Nextel: where phonenumber = your 10 digit phone number Now if you can get a Script where the Sender just Enters the Phone Number, this could be quite easily achieved as I see it. You may not need to spend so many bucks after all. But there's a Possibility that the Specific mobile company may block your Addresses, as SPAM or Harmful, then you may need to contact the Mobile Company with your Query.
There is an application on Facebook made by a random developer which does this and says: 'We use a SMS to email system (which is completely free from our end)' However once you install their application and select your network provider it requires you to do something in order to activate it. I tried 3 (O2, Orange, T-Mobile) different UK networks after installing the application and here is what it said for each one: O2 'In order to activate the Send SMS box, you will have to send an activation text message to your service provider to activate their email to sms service which Send SMS uses. To do this, send ON to 212.' T-Mobile 'In order for Send SMS to work, we need your service provider to enable their email to sms on your phone. Unfortunately we don't have instructions on how to do it (it may not need activation at all).Try enter your cellphone number as normal and if it does not work inquire about their "email to sms" service; and how to activate it. If you manage to get it working, please email us so we can help others' Orange 'Your service provider requires you to register on their site (www.orange.net) in order to activate their email to sms service that Send SMS uses' I'm pretty confident they do this for free. Can anyone figure out how they do this?
i wrote TextMsgMe on facebook, it is a profile to sms application. i used core_sms, a php library which uses email gateways. totally free, easy to use, only catch is you have to select your carrier. http://www.corelevel.com/sms/
You have to buy some "credits" (as much as you want) and each SMS costs X credits (depends on where you send it to). So as long as you have credits, you can send SMS. http://www.tm4b.com/sending-sms/
Cool. Just checked out your app and it says: What is TextMsgMe? 'TextMsgMe is a small application which allows you to receive text messages (SMS) straight from your facebook profile. The application does not cost anything and the text messages arrive almost as soon as you send them. The only thing you need to do to get started is add it to your profile, enter your phone number, select your cellular service provider, and you're set!' So does it only recieve? Also, if you were to send messages, would you have to know the recievers network everytime?
Yes hardware is needed but in your example it is TM4B that has the hardware (or the gateway they use) - SMS cannot magically jump from a Cat5 cable onto someones mobile phone on the other side of the world