I am working on an web site, which, due to a small setback with SVN servers, I have put on hold for a day or 2, but will hopefully get released (or BETA released anyway) soon. One of the features I want to add is SMS support, to allow users to send text messages to the service. BT21C has support for this, but the cost (see down the bottom) is a bit high for testing, etc. dedicated number is £100 setup, and £25 a month for most of Europe support. or £75 a month for most of world, EXCEPT US. Or, there is keyword rental, which cost £10 a month for most of Europe, or £20 for Most of world, Except US. Direct SMS has a similar setup, but looks like Australia only…Clickatell also offer inbound messaging, but its a bit confusing how its done… (standard number cost EUR100 to setup, but is it EUR75 or 25 for monthly fee?).

Anyway, after reading a bit about this, I cant find anything “cheap”. I was hoping that Vodafone’s BetaVine may have something, but by the looks of things, there is no inbound SMS. So I have been thinking about other options:

  • Twitter: there are some inbound SMS options that work with Twitter. For example, in the US, if you send “d tiernano testing” to 40404, I will get a direct message (you have to have a twitter account, and the mobile service enabled). theory behind that is that there are twitter clients all over the place, including for phones, which would mean anyone with a twitter account could send a message, and not cost them much (or nothing in some cases).
  • Some sort of Modem: is it possible to buy a modem that plugs into a server, which has a SIM in it, that would run a command when a text message comes in? what about an API for that device? that would rock!

Anyone out there in Internet land know what I can do?</p>