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
