In house SMS messaging service

I thought of this, and i have no idea how we might implement it. if you do, add it here.

My phone doesn't even support SMS messaging -- supposedly, my only option is to pay an extra $10 a month to get web messages, yet somehow Sprint is able to send me plain text messages just fine. (I have a Samsung 8500 and Sprint PCS)

--Ian

I use T-Mobile, which includes SMS messaging as part of the standard services. You receive 200 messages for no additional charge per month, and I believe $0.05 per message after that. A nice feature that T-Mobile (originally VoiceStream) has is that you can send SMSs over email by emailing 1234567890@voicestream.com, where 1234567890 is that mobile's number (including area code). This of course easily extends to beyond email (for example, I've written an AIM gateway for SMSs by routing AIMs through email to T-Mobile's Email-SMS gateway, as well as a simple web form on my website (http://www.vegalabs.net/cgi-bin/pageget?sms)). This way, no one needs to know my number, and I can restrict users by requiring username and passwords, or by restricting the AIM names that I accept (try IMing VegaLabsSMS with an account that isn't registered and see what happens)). Of course, not everyone in Crew is using T-Mobile, but it's a start. We could use a simple database (perhaps MySQL, or even simpler like a DBM file) with associations between CCS logins and numbers, and then enforce monthly message quotas. Then we can extend this to work over protocols like AIM, IRC, email, and jabber, and perhaps have something on the Crew website for sending messages (*thinks of using BotWorks for some of this*). If phones can't be "emailed," it may be possible to describe different methods for transporting a message in the program depending on the service a user is using. There are plenty of possibilities.

--Daniel

Okay, so I called up Customer Service at Sprint PCS and found someone who knew things. I managed to get 500 every month for an additional $2 on the bill. Unfortunately, Sprint PCS's SMS is notoriously annoying. Your messages are limited to 150 characters, not including From: and Subject: headers. This problem can be aided by sms_biff, a utility written by Dan Harkless that does some nice filtering.

--Ian