Text Messaging Protocols and the Modern Man

PirateJon

I have no idea where to ask this question so maybe you guys can help.

What's the newest and greatest protocol out there that I should be looking at for texting reliability? I'm currently using an SNPP gateway but we're having probelms with people claiming they were never paged. Is SMPP the new hotness or should I look elsewhere?

embrik

What type of devices do the end-users have? You could send pages via email too. However, if these are simple one-way pagers, there's no good way to do it.

In a cellphone, if the cell network receives the SMS, it'll keep trying to send it until the device accepts it. If it's a one-way pager, it will get it if the pager happens to be on and have reception. (I apologize if you already know this, but a lot of people don't realize that there's no way for most "pagers" to acknowledge reception to the network)

PirateJon

We have a mix of devices - blackberrys, sprint/nextel two-way phones, a few hundred text pagers, and a couple of holdout numeric-only pagers. We currently have SNPP as the primary send method with a modem as backup if the internet dies.

If we use any email program, we can request a delivery receipt. But there doesn't seem to be a way to always request and log delivery receipts at the server level. I guess my question is - is that a limitation of the software I'm using, a limitation of the protocol, or a request that can't really be filled?

meeker

My previous experience. If someone says, "I didn't get paged." it is usually dead battery or they just didn't want to answer the call.

Test the system you have. Force it to send a test message to all users. Then get them to respond to you telling you time received.

embrik

PirateJon wrote: »

We have a mix of devices - blackberrys, sprint/nextel two-way phones, a few hundred text pagers, and a couple of holdout numeric-only pagers. We currently have SNPP as the primary send method with a modem as backup if the internet dies.

If we use any email program, we can request a delivery receipt. But there doesn't seem to be a way to always request and log delivery receipts at the server level. I guess my question is - is that a limitation of the software I'm using, a limitation of the protocol, or a request that can't really be filled?

As I understand it, there are two types of return receipts: message disposition notifications (MDNs) and delivery status notification (DSNs)

MDNs are the responsibility of the receiving mail client. A mail client (in this case, a mobile device) has the option of ignoring the request for a receipt altogether. Some clients (like Mozilla Thunderbird), you can set to ask what you want to do when a message contains the request and the user can deny it from being sent.

DSNs are handled by the destination server. That'll only tell you if the message made it that far, but won't be an indication of final delivery. Most of the time, you'll only see one if you mis-type the recipient address.

So, to answer that question, I would say that it's a request that probably won't be filled. I can say with certainty that people who send me mail on my corporate Blackberry and ask for a RR will never get one, but if I go to my desktop and read the same message, the RR will be dispatched immediately then. I've gotten coworkers who were surprised when I responded to an email of theirs without them seeing that I had read it.