Premium Rate SMS (OPPC) with Verisign and NowSMS

In this article, we’re going to explain how to configure NowSMS to support the additional parameters supported by the Verisign SMS service.

These special parameters are specific to the verisign SMS Service. So for customers who are looking to use NowSMS with Verisign, I want to highlight some of these settings and parameters.

This should not be construed as an endorsement of Verisign by NowSMS, or vice versa. This is just information that is provided to help simplify the process of integrating NowSMS with the Verisign service.

There are a series of special SMPP parameters that Verisign defines for their service. SMPP is flexible in that it allows service providers to define additional parameters in the optional TLV (tag, length, value) section of the SMPP message packet.

To enable the additional Verisign parameters in NowSMS, it is necessary to manually edit the SMSGW.INI file and and add the following section:

[SMPPOptions]
verisign_product_code=1520,String
verisign_output_code=1530,String
verisign_error_message=1531,String
verisign_auth_code=1532,String
verisign_auth_message=1533,String
verisign_carrier_id=1402,String
verisign_carrier_name=1404,String

The above text should be added to the SMSGW.INI file “as is”. “String” and “Integer” are not place holders for you to replace when adding this information to the SMSGW.INI file, so please avoid that common mistake.

These parameters are provider specific, and you are telling NowSMS that there are additional parameters supported by your provider, and these settings tell NowSMS the parameter type (e.g., “String”), length restrictions, and the SMPP parameter value.

When these settings are present, additional parameters are supported when submitting a message to NowSMS via an HTTP URL request.

“&SMPPOption_verisign_product_code=” can specify a value for the premium rate product code of this message. This is a text string that you setup and register with Verisign before you can use it.

The other parameters could also be specified when submitting a message, however Verisign documentation suggests that they are only supported in messages that you receive.

When these SMSGW.INI file settings are present, NowSMS will also route these parameters to HTTP-based 2-way commands. If a message is received which contains values for any of these settings, NowSMS will automatically append the setting name and value (e.g., “&SMPPOption_verisign_carrier_id=value” or “&SMPPOption_verisign_carrier_name=” to the 2-way URL. It is not necessary to add any variables to the 2-way command template, as these values will be appended automatically if present in a received message.

In addition to supporting these options via HTTP URL request, it is possible to configure default settings for any of these options for each outbound SMPP connection.

In many cases, it may be desirable to define default values for these parameters, instead of having to specify them in each HTTP URL submission. To define default values for these parameters, manually edit the SMSGW.INI, and in the section header for an SMPP connection (e.g., [SMPP – ip.address:port]), add a “DefaultSMPPOptions=” setting, where the value of this setting can contain any of the “SMPPOptions” settings. For example, “DefaultSMPPOptions=verisign_product_code=ACMEX_12345_RINGHIP_999_S”. To include multiple options, separate the entries with a “;”, for example, “DefaultSMPPOptions=verisign_product_code=ACMEX_12345_RINGHIP_999_S;verisign_auth_code=test”.

For additional information on any of these parameters, please refer to the Verisign SMS Gateway API Reference.