Staying firm on its promise to provide clients dedicated support and help, SMSLane has developed all-new support system focused on quick and complete solution of the clients’ queries as well as problems. We feel glad to announce that recently updated support system is spontaneous, wise and logical enough to act, analysis and solve any sort of issue or query in a quick instance of time.
Below are the key elements of our updated support system:
Available 7 days a Week – The problem doesn’t come after invitation; it can come any day, anytime. Thus, we are available to offer support on all 7 days of a week. So, call us any day, anytime, we will help you up to the highest possible extent.
Expert @ Help – Our executives are thoroughly trained to offer dedicated help and support to the clients. They are capable of dealing with your every possible query or issue. Come to us with any logical problem or query, our executive will get it resolved in best possible time.
Patient Listening – Maintaining standard support decorum, our support executives maintain the habit of listening to the queries or issues of the clients with complete patience, which will allow you to elaborate your problem or query and to get the most appropriate solution in return.
Update – We have developed the mechanism to intimate the client on the progress made in handling the issue of the client after every short interval of time. Also, the clients will be confirmed on the complete solution of the problem.
Feedback – We will consider our-self in win situation only when we have satisfied clients. Thus, we would like to have feedback from you regarding your experience you had in using our service. Your feedback will help us to become better over and over again.
Our updated support system has been already brought into action. You can reach us @ support@smslane.com and 9979524323. Looking forward to help YOU!
Category: Technical Information
Rakesh, an entrepreneur in North India, was fed up with the operator providing the enterprise messaging service.
It was the third time in a month when he has faced constant message failures, which was also affecting his business and brand promotion campaign. In addition, within a time span of less than a year and a half, the operator has increased the message rates for around 5 times or so.
Rakesh wanted to go for another operator, but it was all a hectic and complex task to migrate all the data successfully.
The above-mentioned case is just not a unique with Rakesh, but most of the business individuals face the same problem when it comes to enterprise messaging service.
The operators are very good at convincing the customers as they promise all good things to turn the prospects into customers. But, the real game of making money starts when a business individual completes a month with their service. Post to that, they come up with various hidden charges plus make the people suffer with high downtime of their system, which finally results in undelivered messages.
To overcome such problem and to get rid of this constant blackmail from operator’s side, one can have its own SMPP server. Yes, you heard it right. Now, you can have your own SMPP server dedicated to your system.
The dedicated SMPP server will clear the risks of downtime and also, you need not to pay extra bucks after every short span of time as the operator increases the message tariff in regular intervals.
SMPP server not only ensures quick delivery of the messages or very less downtime, but it is also reliable and provides higher throughput. In addition, your data remain safely stored in your system and you do not have to even worry about data migration (as it is a common case when you walk to a new provider). The cost of such set-up is low and it is also one-time investment.
Thus, it is always preferable to have your own SMPP server instead of getting the enterprise messaging services from provider/operator.
We are living in the age of technical advancement, where we prefer to use the technology that delivers best possible results in short span of time. Same thing goes with enterprise messaging. Sending messages to the clients is crucial part of marketing, promotion and support section in the commercial sector. Thus, it demands for the system that can offer them secure, reliable and fast delivery of the messages to the customers. Where we have various methods available for enterprise messaging, most of the business individuals prefer Short Message Peer to Peer Protocol (SMPP)Â for the following reasons:
SMPP is quick – SMPP ensures quick delivery of the messages without fail. SMPP remain constantly connected to the server, which means it does not require validating the username and password to send the message which is a common case if we send the messages through HTTP API. It is an open source system originated for proper delivery of the messages.
SMPP is reliable – The main problem that business individual faces with enterprise messaging are -loads of messages remain undelivered to the client or get failed. Such issues do not arise when you send the messages through SMPP server.
Higher Throughput – Other messaging systems provide through put maximum up to 20messages/second. On other hand, through SMPP; one can send up to 1000messages/second.
Less Downtime – While other systems have greater downtime, with SMPP server downtime reduces to 1% which is quite low. Thus, business individuals do not face the risk associated with downtime or constant message failures.
Support Business Campaign – Through SMPP, a million messages can be sent successfully in a single day. With other methods or system, it is not possible to deliver such massive number of messages without errors. Hence, it completely supports the bulk message campaign held by the enterprises to promote their brand.
This is a very common question !! What is the difference between promotional and transactional gateway.
Last year TRAI has come up with a category called Transactional SMS to curb the unsolicited communication. We have already described this in an earlier post What is Transactional SMS.
Unfortunately, TRAI has not defined what is Promotional SMS category. Therefore, any message apart from transactional sms category is called promotional sms.
Over and above, its the content which decides the category of SMS apart from from who is sending SMS. For example, a registered Bank is eligible to send Transactional SMS as per TRAI, however they can can not send any promotional content to their registered customers through Transactional channel.
Example: The following example illustrates the two different type of sms sent by a bank
Transactional: Dear customer your account balance is Rs 55555. Regards. ABC Bank.
Promotional: Now get 4.5% interest on all your fixed deposit. Regards. ABC Bank.
Now that we have defined both the categories, we will compare the features of both the categories:
| Category | Alpha Sender ID | Delivery Windows | Can be delivered to DND numbers ? |
| Promotaional | Not Available Only numeric senderid e.g LM:610410 |
9 AM to 9 PM | No, you can not send promotional sms to DND (Do not disturb) numbers |
| Transactional | Yes, Available Exactly 6 Character alpha senderid e.g LM:AXISBK |
24 Hrs | Yes, Transactional sms can be delivered to all the numbers |
What are the precautions required while sending Transactional SMS
- Always maintain a database of your opted-in clients. This is required to be produced in case of complain is filed by recipient
- Do not send any promotional content to any one from transactional pipe.
Categories
Kannel SMPP Server
At times companies need Kannel expert to setup SMPP server for inbound and outbound SMS traffic.
We provide consultancy and step by step guide for Kannel smpp configuration.
Step by step setting up Kannel Server with SQLBOX and SMSBOX is very important to achieve maximum throughput.
Our solution provides, multiple SMSC routing management for load balancing of SMS traffic. Our state of art solution also covers multiple sessions (with window size) to achieve up to 500 TPS which can even be scaled based on future requirement.
Contact us to discuss your requirement at support@smslane.com
Team SMSLane
Categories
Transactional SMS
What is Transactional Messages ?
- Information sent to its customer(s) by the Bank or financial institution or insurance company or credit card company
- Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorized agencies to its passengers regarding travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation
- Information from a registered educational institution to parents or guardians of its students;
- Information sent by e-commerce agencies in response to ecommerce transactions made by their customers
- Information sent by a company or a firm or depository participant, registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) or Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) or Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) or National Commodity & Derivative Exchange Ltd. (NCDEX) or Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) to its clients pertaining to the account of the client
- Information sent by a registered company to its employees or agents or to its customers pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to such customers
Who can send Transactional Messages ?
- Registered Companies
- Registered Banks & Financial Institution
- Insurance Company
- Credit Card Companies
- Registered Education Instituted (Only for sending critical information to parents)
- Airlines & Railway (Only for sending ticket & PNR details to passengers)
- Stock Market DP Info Alerts (Only to opted-in/subscribed customers)
- E-Commerce website sending response to ecommerce transactions made by their customers
Sender ID for Transactional Messages
Only 6 Character long Alpha sender ID is allowed for sending Transactional Messages. Sender ID must contain exactly 6 characters (neither less nor more) in upper case and must be convincing enough with respect to industry/brand/service
Example: LM-ABCDEF
‘L’ stands for the operator code here its “Loop Mobile”
‘M’ stands for the service area here its “Mumbai”
‘-‘ is the delimiter
‘ABCDEF’ indicates six alphabets for company or organization sending transactional SMS
Note: Only one Sender ID is allowed per account . Sender ID is subjected to approval.
Message Submission Timings Window
Transactional SMS Gateway is open for 24 hours 365 days
Message Templates
Transactional SMS gateway works with template based system, you can create any number of message templates from your account. Once your template is approved by us you can start sending transactional messages to all your opted in clients including numbers registered with NCCPR Registry (DND)
If the template and sender id does not match (including comas and space) with our records sms will not be processed and dropped.
SMS Template API
If you are using our API’s for pushing SMS, you have to pass the correct template and additional parameter gwid=2 (subject to approval of your account for sending transactional sms)
Our developer API is available at https://developer.smslane.com/
Sample SMS Templates
Dear #Field#, Your account #Field# has been credited with #Field# on #Field#. Your current account balance is #Field#.Thanks
You can replace the #Field# with your own variable contents while sending SMS. Please remember if you change the structure of the template, including blank spaces, SMS will not processed. While sending the Transactional SMS from your control panel, our system takes care of probable mistakes, however while sending your message through API, you need be extra cautious. We always recommend you to test your template after approval before migrating to production mode.
All templates are subjected to approval.
Getting Started
- Download undertaking for sending transactional SMS
- Print the undertaking on company letter head and send duly signed scanned copy of ducument to support@smslane.com mentioning your username and category under which you want to send transactional sms (refer who can send transactional sms above to find your category)
- Once your document is received and approved, transactional sms menu  will appear your control panel.
What to do once my Transactional SMS Menus are enabled
- Login to you smslane.com account and click on My Templates
- Add you template for approval
- Also submit a request for new Sender ID (for Transactional SMS)
- Once your template and senderid are approved, click on SMS From Template and start sending Transactional SMS
- API users can add an additional parameter gwid=2 to existing API for sending transactional SMS
- In case your messages are not delivered through transactional channel, in 99% cases, the issue remains to be of template mismatch. Please drop a service support request from your control panel along with your message and affected mobile number for speedy resolution of your issue.
Categories
Incoming SMS ASP.net C#
Earlier we have written about Receiving Incoming SMS on PHP page
We have received lot of request for similar code for C# . The process is very simple. We just need your public URL Â where we can post your incoming sms parameters through GET method.
You have to write the following code in your Page Load Event.
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Response.ClearContent();
Response.Clear();
string mobileNumber = Request[who].Trim();
string message= Request[what].Trim();
// Now you have the incoming sms and senders mobile number. You can write your code to insert the details in your database
Response.Write(“Success”);Â // You can also change the response message.
Response.End(); // This is required because we do not want any HTML code/tag in your response.
}
Categories
SMPP Client Vs SMPP Server
Plenty of products are sold across the internet, on its name, which does not necessarily even matches its functionality. SMPP Server is one of such victim. There a hundreds of website I have found selling SMPP client on the name of SMPP Server. If you are looking for best smpp client or best smpp server, finally you get confused and end up buying a simple smpp client instead of smpp server.  I my self searched on the internet but could not find a robust SMPP Server in India.
The only reason I find for this act is the lack of awareness across the users and gimmicky of terminology used by various marketing gurus.
What is SMPP Protocol?
SMPP protocol has been a blessing for SMS era and the entire credit goes to SMPP Forum (Open Source) for keeping the protocol very user-friendly and open. Plenty of open-minded developers have developed native library based on TCP/IP protocol and socket connection (port programming) to connect a SMPP server (so-called SMSC). These libraries help a developer to develop a SMPP client without digging the details of port programming and TCP/IP protocol.
In fact, we have our own native library (SMPP Client) too, which is offered free of cost to our valued clients to connect to our SMPP Server.
There are many SMPP client and server implementations and their compliance with the SMPP specifications are very varied. SMSLane.com probably offers the most “intelligent” SMPP solution available since it has been designed to interact with many different Operator level SMPP clients/servers.
So, what do these variations consist of?
Let us look at the most important differences between SMPP 3.3 and SMPP 3.4 by specification.
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First of all SMPP 3.3 is a proprietary protocol which was handed over to the SMS Forum (formerly SMPP Forum) and evolved into the SMPP 3.4 protocol managed by SMS Forum, an independent body.
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A SMPP 3.3 connection is either for sending (bind_transmitter) or receiving (bind_receiver) messages, so in order to be able to send and receive messages 2 connections are needed. SMPP 3.4 introduces bind_transceiver, which allows for sending and receiving messages over the same connection.
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SMPP 3.3 uses submit_sm and deliver_sm for sending and receiving messages, while SMPP 3.4 also adds the data_sm operation which can be used in both directions.
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SMPP 3.3 only supports a fixed number of parameters per operation, whereas SMPP 3.4 introduces “optional parameters” which may optionally be present in a SMPP 3.4 operation.
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SMPP 3.3 message ids are numeric and are sometimes presented in a decimal form and sometimes in hexadecimal. SMPP 3.4 message ids are alphanumeric.
When it comes to SMPP Server, its altogether is a different chapter and its far beyond implementation of a SMPP client. SMPP Server is nothing but a complete SMSC (Short Message Service Center) which can handle multiple SMPP Clients, manage sessions, take care of billing, relay millions of SMS traffic to interconnected SMSC’s. In fact the majority of the Telecom operator outsource their SMSC from a third party owing to its complexity and consistency.
After years of research, Smslane has launched Power SMPP itextWeb which is suitable for aggregators who want to run SMS business on their own platform. Get in touch with us for further details.
I hope this article will provide a bare minimum information in differentiating between SMPP Client and SMPP Server.
You can contact us for either of the solutions you are looking for your organization. We will be happy to share our inputs on these subjects without any obligation as we have been providing consultancy service on enterprise-grade SMS Server implementation to various agencies across the globe.
Thank you.
Team SMSLane
Categories
Incoming SMS API for PHP
We receive lot of inquiries from our users asking about how to receive incoming SMS to their application. I think our developers are expecting it to be very complicated than it is. We have made our incoming sms api extremely simple and user friendly.
Actually all you are doing is setting up a web page to which we send the incoming data to through an HTTP GET. Whatever your web page displays, is sent back to the phone.
In order to give our developers an open hand, we have also given an option to setup their web page URL on which they want to receive their incoming data.  (Add/Edit keywords in control panel)
Here is a sample PHP script which you can put to your webpage.
<?php
$smssender = $_GET[“who”];
$incomingMessage = $_GET[“what”];
echo(“The sender is $smssender, the message is $incomingMessage .â€);
// Here you can also echo a dynamic auto reply based on incoming message and sender.
?>
It doesn’t get simpler than that! Create a page with this in it on your web site called smshandler.php.
Go into our control panel an put the full URL in the URL Post box.
eg. http://yoursite.com/smshandler.php
When an incoming message to your keyword comes in, it will be sent to your URL as follows (with the real values) –
http://yoursite.com/smshandler.php?who=919898123456&what=Keyword
The variables we send to you on the query string are:
- who – phone # of the incoming sms
- what – the complete message
It really is that simple. In your script, you do whatever you need to do to create the return message, and simply echo it back to the browser.
If you call the script in your browser with the query string, you should see the message returned.
Make sure there is NO HTML at all in the response.
Thats it! Now don’t wait .. Â just create an account for ShortCode or Long code and have a THREE days of FREE Trial on your favourite keyword .
Team SMSLane