SMS Text Messaging

Considering the programmer would need to pay money for the SMS gateway, I’d say probably not.

You can have a look at https://developer.zong.com and about the bulk services.
The sms gateway is already in place so you juste have to create your service and create your own program with the API to schedule a weekly function that send sms to your “sms-subscriber”.

You can have a look at https://developer.zong.com and about the bulk services.
The sms gateway is already in place so you juste have to create your service and create your own program with the API to schedule a weekly function that send sms to your “sms-subscriber”.

If it’s free for the developper, I’m 90% sure it’s gonna send a message to the user telling him ‘he got mail’, then he or she will need to reply ‘READ’ to get the message and that message will cost 1$ to the user… Real SMS gateway cost A LOT… like 500$ per month.

Correct. It’s rare that you’ll see software which sends SMS that doesn’t generate a profit. Even “free” software that has SMS capability such as Nagios, etc still generates profit.

You dont necessarily need a gateway, IF the person has a decent service. I have Sprint, on my Treo, with every bell and whistle of course (paid for by my work), and sending SMS is no more difficult than sending an email to [email protected]

I have it set up my server, in fact, for certain alerts.

this is not sms… it’s email.

I KNOW what it is — its SMS through email. The affect is the same. Its a message — it comes to my phone, not an email address.

The effect is exactly the same, and it doesnt involve spending money on another service.

How difficult is it to create a bash script that sends an email? It takes 2 minutes. A PHP script? Two minutes.

btw, as an addendum..

Verizon: [email protected]
T-Mobile: [email protected]
Virgin Mobile: [email protected]
Cingular: [email protected]
Nextel: [email protected]

Apparently they all provide email to SMS as well. It would seem to me that if someone were looking to implement such a feature — that would be the cheapest way to go.

Sure, that’s great if you want a message sent to yourself. That doesn’t have anything to do with his needs.

I want a way for users to enter their phone number and then be able to instantly send them a text (customized each time) with a weekly update.

How is that not a viable solution to what he asked?

I didnt write the plugin for him?

I go to his site. I give him my 10 digit # and tell him my provider. Its done.

Is that me sending a message to me?

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Fwiw, youve added nothing helpful to the OP in this thread. .. Moving on.

My solution thus far is the following.

I provide a form for the user to enter their 10 digit number. It uploads to a database. I have the database list the numbers.

I then go to my phone provider and use their built in service to message the users (20 at a time). It is a bit of a pain but it works so far.

If I figure out an easier solution or some sort of workaround with my cell provider I will post it here. For now what I am doing works but it is not very seamless.

Gable (and anyone else who has a desire for this plugin),

If someone were to create it, what fields would you want them to fill out? I figure phone number and maybe a dropdown for their provider. Would you need their name, email, etc?

For a simple SMS message option the phone number would be all you need.

The 10 digit number could then be stored in the database (or text file) and when it is time to send the weekly / monthly message it simply goes down the list and sends a text message to each number.

I use the word simply very lightly. ??

Can someone create a plugin please ?

Gable, I agree with you that this plugin would be useful to many members. As soon as I’m able I’ll great it. If you or anyone else would like to be notified when it’s available, shoot me an email with the contact form on my website and I’ll let you know. Just remind me who you are and why you’re sending me an email:) and feel free to drop me a line with any suggestions for the plugin. Since I’m writing it for you (gable and any others) and not me, I don’t really care what all goes into it so it will be 100% based on suggestions.