SMPP

Limit SMS Messages Sent Per Day, Hour, Minute, or Second

Especially useful for modem connections, NowSMS 2018 supports restrictions that can be used to limit the number of SMS messages sent over any individual SMS connection. These restrictions can be accessed from the “SMSC” page in the NowSMS configuration. Highlight an SMSC connection and press the “Restrictions” button. These settings are also available in the NowSMS Cloud...

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MMS Notifications: SMS Sender Address & SMPP Connection Choice

An interesting series of questions from our support mailbox: Hi Now SMS Technical Support, Hope you are all keeping well. Just had a question. Is there any way to define a sender ID for MMS where the leg out to the SMSC seems to have no Calling Party Address? Define a “Default Sender Address” under the properties for the SMSC connection. SMS messages that are generated for MMS...

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UCP to SMPP Converter / Proxy

We’ve had a few inquiries related to the UCP protocol recently. UCP is a legacy application to SMS protocol that was implemented by SMSCs from a company named CMG. (Bryce posted some background info on this over 12 years ago in response to questions in our support forum at https://support.nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/8150.html) UCP was never a widely adopted protocol, but for a period of...

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SMPP Character Set Issues

This article provides troubleshooting advice when sending SMS messages with NowSMS and experiencing one or more of the following issues: a.) Some characters such as @, $, £ or € are not correct. b.) Some or all messages are truncated or garbage (possibly only messages over a certain length). c.) Some accented characters are not correct (è, é, etc.) d.) Some or all Greek characters are not...

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SMPP TLV Optional Parameters

The SMPP protocol defines support for optional parameters, known as TLV parameters. Some TLV parameters are defined in the core specification, and NowSMS may use them depending on configuration settings. These TLV parameters include message_payload, source_port, dest_port, sar_msg_ref_num, sar_total_segments, sar_segment_seqnum, payload_type, message_state and receipted_message_id. (There are...

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SMS 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...

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International 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...

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Multiple 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...

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SMPP Information and Resources

SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) Protocol is an industry standard protocol that is used for exchanging SMS messages between peer entities.  In SMPP terminology, two types of entities are defined, a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC), and an External Short Messaging Entity (ESME). In simplistic terms, an SMSC manages SMS messages for a mobile operator network, delivering SMS messages to mobile...

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SMPP Asynchronous Mode

One of the biggest limitations to SMPP performance is protocol implementations that do not support SMPP asynchronous mode, or to state it more correctly, do not take advantage of the speed boost that is possible with SMPP asynchrnous mode. SMPP Synchronous Mode = One Message at a Time In SMPP Synchrnous mode, each side of the SMPP client has only one outstanding transaction active at a time. ...

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SMPP Receipt Message ID Tracking Over Multiple Connections

One of the standard capabilities of NowSMS is the automatic mapping of receipt message IDs when routing messages to an upstream SMSC connection. The reasoning/logic is simple. When NowSMS accepts a message from a client, NowSMS needs to assign an ID to the message. When the message gets routed to an upstream SMSC, that SMSC will assign a new message ID. NowSMS saves the message ID assigned by...

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Using NowSMS as an SMPP Server for Another Application

One of the more unusual features of NowSMS is its ability to operate as an SMPP server. NowSMS can relay messages submitted to its SMPP server to any outbound SMSC connection, which could be one or more GSM modems and/or SMPP, UCP/EMI, CIMD2 or HTTP SMSC connections. There are a few different reasons why this feature would be used. The simplest scenario is when an end user wants to use a...

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SMPP Error Code Reference

Information on how NowSMS handles different SMPP errors can be found at the following link: https://nowsms.com/smpp-error-code-handling-in-nowsms This article is a reference for SMPP error codes. ESME_RINVMSGLEN 1 Invalid Message Length (sm_length parameter) ESME_RINVCMDLEN 2 Invalid Command Length (command_length in SMPP PDU) ESME_RINVCMDID 3 Invalid Command ID...

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Premium Rate SMS (OPPC) with Verisign and NowSMS

Here at NowSMS, we make it a point not to endorse any particular SMS service provider. We like our customers to have flexibility to choose and change SMS service providers that best fit their needs. That said, some SMS service providers have unique configuration attributes, and you need to apply special configuration parameters in NowSMS in order to take advantage of features and flexibility...

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SMPP 3.4 Protocol Specification Archive

For archive purposes, I’m posting a copy of the SMPP 3.4 Specification here. The SMS standards organization that created the specification has disbanded, and there are plans for their web site to be shut down. This doesn’t mean that SMPP is not still important for SMS. It remains the de-facto standard for application based SMS messaging. It’s just that the SMPP v3.4...

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TON and NPI Settings for SMPP and UCP/EMI

One of the most confusing issues involved in setting up an SMSC connection is when your SMS service provider requires specific TON (type of number) and NPI (numbering plan identification) values. In the majority of cases, you can ignore any requirements that your provider has for these settings, because NowSMS uses intelligent default values. For SMPP environments, these are the rules that NowSMS...

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mBlox and NowSMS: Premium Rate SMS and OPPC

Here at NowSMS, we make it a point not to endorse any particular SMS service provider. The fact of that matter is that bulk SMS services are a volatile business, and we like our customers to have flexibility to choose and change SMS service providers that best fit their needs. That said, some SMS service providers have unique configuration attributes, and you need to apply special configuration...

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SMPP Connection Types – Sender, Receiver, Transceiver

When making a connection to an SMPP server, there are three different types of connections that can be supported. A “sender”, or “send only”, connection is allowed to transmit messages only over the connection, it cannot receive any messages. (Some SMPP servers will still deliver SMPP delivery receipt messages over a “sender” connection.) A...

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SMSC Speed Limits

In a perfect world, we’d all be able to send SMS messages as fast as we wanted. But the reality is that there is a combination of commercial and technical limitations throughout the message distribution chain. NowSMS has commercial limitations where outbound message delivery is throttled at a per minute or per second license limit. Individual SMS service providers have similar limits that...

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Long SMS Text Messages and the 160 Character Limit

Ok, this post may be old news to many … but it’s a question that I get asked frequently … SMS text messages are limited to 160 characters, but on most GSM networks it is possible to send longer text messages. These messages go out as multiple physical SMS messages that are logically reassembled into a single long text message by the recipient handset. How does this work? What...

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