Send SMS from Web (are there some providers for this)?

Question

I'd like to have something like what the app.net site has. You click a button and get the option to send a link to your phone via SMS (or email). What are some options for implementing the sms side of things, and are there services or open source packages that provide this?

Here's a random example from app.net . Click the "Get this App" button to see what I mean.

Something like this would even work for me <a href="http://saasSMS.com?url=mycorp.com/test.html">Send link to Phone</a> Where "saasSMS.com" is some service that handles the whole sms side of things. Ideally could either handle that via a link or via a form post (and it would redirect back to your site on success or something).

What I don't want: A drop down that makes you pick your carrier and some php page that tries to email you @vtext.com or similar. That is just not slick enough.

Answer 1

You can use the ViaNett HTTP API to send SMS messages worldwide without specifying the operator.

As long as your backend supports invoking HTTP requests it will work.

Here is an example written in PHP:

<?php

// Register here to get a username and password:
// http://www.vianett.com/en/free-demonstration-account

if (vianett_sendsms('username', 'password', 'example', '+4412345678', 'Hello world', $error)) {
    echo 'Success!';
} else {
    echo $error;
}

function vianett_sendsms($username, $password, $from, $to, $msg, &$response=null) {
    $url = 'https://smsc.vianett.no/v3/send.ashx';
    $data = array(
        'user'  => $username,
        'pass'  => $password,
        'src'   => $from,
        'dst'   => $to,
        'msg'   => $msg
    );
    $qs = http_build_query($data);
    $response = file_get_contents($url.'?'.$qs);
    return $response == '200|OK';
}

Answer 2

We're getting good results from http://www.twilio.com

Answer 3

For direct SMS, you can try contacting a service provider and make a contract with it. If its for small projects and the server is accessible, you could put a GPRS mobile phone or modem and send with it.