WAP Push Work-Around for AT&T USA
Some of our customers have been frustrated by an AT&T policy that blocks the sending of mobile originated WAP Push messages. This prevents WAP Push messages from being sent over a GSM modem. This blocking affects all messages that are sent via WAP Push, not just service indication messages, but also blocking OMA OTA settings and MMS notifications. A NowSMS customer discovered a potential...
Read MoreSMS Hubbing Considerations
NowSMS is frequently used to provide SMS message routing connectivity between multiple SMSCs using the SMPP protocol. The purpose of this document is to clarify issues that are frequently encountered in SMS hubbing configurations. In SMS hubbing configurations, NowSMS is connected to one or more service providers using the SMPP protocol. Service providers route selected SMS messages to NowSMS...
Read MoreNowSMS MMSC Diameter MM9 Implementation
Click here for a PDF version of this document. This document outlines how MMS charging is implemented using Diameter and MM9 in the NowSMS MMSC. It also describes a test program that is used to validate proper Diameter configuration parameters and charging behaviour. MM9 Diameter charging is enabled in NowSMS MMSC versions 2013.04.01 and later. The MMSC implements Diameter Credit Control for...
Read MoreIssue Receiving MMS over GSM Modem on Orange UK
We’d like to draw some attention to an issue that was reported (and quickly diagnosed) on our discussion forum last month. A customer reported that they were no longer able to process received MMS messages using a GSM modem on the Orange network in the UK. There are a variety of potential causes, such as a SIM not being enabled for MMS support, or incorrectly provisioned Operator MMS...
Read MoreBrowse Tech Bulletins by Keywords
Our technical bulletins describe advanced technical features of the Now SMS & MMS Gateway and clarify advanced configuration options.
Follow this link to browse technical bulletins by keyword, or browse from the list below.
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Read More2-Way / Inbound SMS Retry Error Handling
This article will explain how NowSMS handles retry situations when processing inbound SMS messages via a 2-way command, and there is a connectivity or other problem processing the 2-way command, particularly with regard to HTTP based 2-way SMS message processing commands. There are other articles that explain how NowSMS handles retry situations for outbound message delivery. A good overview can...
Read MoreUnderstanding SMS Accounting Callbacks for Billing and Charging
Accounting callbacks provide an interface between the NowSMS SMS Gateway and external billing and charging systems. They can also be used to control message routing, providing a way for a user application to control which SMSC connections are used for sending particular messages. These accounting callbacks are HTTP-based. When accounting callbacks are enabled, NowSMS will issue HTTP requests...
Read MoreProvisioning SMS and MMSC User Accounts via HTTP
NowSMS has long supported external account provisioning via HTTP as described in the article at http://www.nowsms.com/provisioning-sms-and-mmsc-user-accounts-via-http. The purpose of this article is to document additional parameters supported in more recent versions of NowSMS. This provisioning interface is enabled whenever one or more user accounts is defined in NowSMS under “SMS...
Read MoreSMPP Server Adds @ Characters to Text Message
It has come to our attention that a bug exists in the NowSMS SMPP Server implementation for versions dated between 2011.07.xx and 2012.01.xx inclusive. This bug only effects configurations where NowSMS is being used as an SMPP server. In other words, an SMPP client is being used to submit messages to NowSMS, and messages are being segmented by the SMPP client before they are submitted to...
Read MoreNokia N9 Unable to Receive MMS
It has come to our attention that there is a bug in the MMS client of the Nokia N9 which can prevent this phone from being able to receive MMS messages from a NowSMS MMSC. The problem occurs because the MMS client cannot process an MMS notification message where the MMS Content URL contains a URL escaped parameter. When the MMS client encounters a URL escaped parameter in a URL, it re-encodes...
Read MoreSend MMS from C# .NET
A .NET C# example for sending MMS messages via NowSMS has been posted at the following link: http://www.nowsms.com/download/sendmms.c#.txt For a VB.NET version of this example, please see the related article Send MMS from VB.NET. MMS examples for other environments (PHP, Java, command line) can be found at http://www.nowsms.com/sending-mms-messages-with-nowsms. As discussed in Sending MMS...
Read MoreSend MMS from VB.NET
A VB.NET example for sending MMS messages via NowSMS has been posted at the following link: http://www.nowsms.com/download/sendmms.vb.txt For a C# .NET version of this example, please see the related article Send MMS from C# .NET. MMS examples for other environments (PHP, Java, command line) can be found at http://www.nowsms.com/sending-mms-messages-with-nowsms. As discussed in Sending MMS...
Read MoreNowWAP: Enabling Cookies for HTTP Header Enrichment
NowWAP HTTP Header Enrichment (HHE) is described in more detail in the following article: http://www.nowsms.com/nowwap-and-http-header-enrichment In addition to the HHE issues discussed in that article, we frequently receive questions about using HTTP Cookie headers for identifying the MSISDN. These questions are usually asked for the following reasons: Customers migrating from or augmenting...
Read MoreNowSMS Status Query with PHP
Previous articles have described the XML-based status query interface that can be used to programmatically retrieve information about the current status of NowSMS. The XML-based status query interface that reports information similar to what is reported on the “Status” page of the NowSMS configuration dialog. The query results include information about SMSC connection status, the number of...
Read MoreRepairing a Corrupt MMSC User Database
We recently had a customer whose MMSC stopped automatically provisioning new users. The MMSC user database had become corrupt, preventing new users from being able to be automatically provisioned. While it is not known why this corruption occurred, the most common potential cause is an abnormal system shutdown, such as power failure. Future versions of the MMSC will include start-up logic to...
Read MoreInternational Prefix Conversion for SMS
There are many situations where end users submit messages using local number formats, but the upstream SMSC connection requires that the message be submitted using an international format (e.g., include a country code and possibly require TON=1 for SMPP connections). For example, an end user in the UK might want to send an SMS message to 0777777777 using the local number format, but the upstream...
Read MoreMultiple SMPP Connections to One SMSC
Although it is possible for SMPP Asynchronous connections to process hundreds of SMS messages per second, sometimes there are performance gains by having more than one SMPP connection to the same SMSC. This is especially the case if the SMSC has per connection speed limits, or other performance limiting characteristics. It may also be necessary to specify more than one SMPP connection to the...
Read MoreNowSMS Update Release 2011.07.05
An updated release of the Now SMS & MMS Gateway is currently available at http://www.nowsms.com/download/nowsms20110705.zip. Use the executable file in this ZIP to update an existing NowSMS installation. This document details the update release history since the previous official release, version 2010.11.04. Release history for the changes prior to the current official release can be...
Read MoreSMS Distribution Lists with PHP
An earlier post described the HTTP URL formats for working with NowSMS distribution lists. This post provides some example PHP functions that can be used to simplify this process. Now that NowSMS can support PHP scripts natively without a separate web server, it is even easier to prototype SMS applications with NowSMS. In this example, we’ll use these example PHP functions to allow users...
Read MoreNowWAP Statistics Reports
The log files created by NowWAP are of a text format that follows the common log format for web servers. These log files are stored on the NowWAP server, with one log file created for each day, using a file naming convention of WAPGW-yyyymmdd.LOG, where yyyymmdd is the 4-digit year, 2-digit month and 2-digit day. NowWAP 2011 has optional functionality which can convert these log files into a...
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