SMS Gateway

SmartPTT Radioserver has an integrated SMS Gateway Service which allows establishing communication between radios and mobile phones. There are 2 possible ways to communicate between each other:

1. Radio subscriber sends an SMS to phone subscriber.
2. Phone subscriber sends an SMS to radio subscriber.

SMS Gateways that has been tested with SmartPTT:

-      Huawei E173
-      Huawei E369
-      Cinterion MC52i/MC55i (or supporting the same command system) - recommended

Our clients also use:

-      Huawei E153
-      Huawei E160e

Note. (regarding Huawey E series modem) When modem is connected to PC and shows the list of available COM ports, you will need to select one, that is listed as HUAWEI Mobile Connect – 3G PC UI Interface (COM)

 

To be able to send an SMS, it is necessary to do preliminary settings on both modem and SmartPTT Radioserver.

 

SMS Gateway configuration

Select the SMS Gateway item in SmartPTT Radioserver Configurator:

Active – select to enable SMS Gateway service.

Allow SMS delivery from radios – select this option if you need to forward SMS directly from subscriber radios.

Allow SMS delivery to radios – select this option if you need to forward SMS directly to subscriber radios

Setting up a modem

Port Name – COM port number that modem is connected to. You can find the COM port number by opening modem properties in Windows Control Panel.

Speed – data flow rate through COM port (in bits/sec).

Data Bits – number of data bits to transmit.

You can configure Data Bits to be 5, 6, 7, or 8. Data is transmitted as a series of five, six, seven, or eight bits (five and six bit data formats are used rarely for specialized communications equipment).

Stop Bits – number of bits used to indicate the end of a byte. You can configure Stop Bits to be 1, 1.5, or 2. If Stop Bits is 1.5, the stop bit is transferred for 150% of the normal time used to transfer one bit.

Both the computer and the peripheral device must be configured to transmit the same number of stop bits.

Parity – method of detecting errors in transmission.

Parity Control Bit Modes:

You can configure Parity to be None, Odd or Even.

If Parity is None, parity checking is not performed and the parity bit is not transmitted.

If Parity is Odd, the number of mark bits in the data is counted, and the parity bit is asserted or unasserted to obtain an odd number of mark bits.

If Parity is Even, the number of mark bits in the data is counted, and the parity bit is asserted or unasserted to obtain an even number of mark bits.

Read Timeout – number of milliseconds before a time-out occurs when a read operation does not finish.

Write Timeout – number of milliseconds before a time-out occurs when a write operation does not finish.

Check Modem – modem operation test. If a modem is detected, you will see information regarding the type of modem installed on your system. If there is no modem detected, you will see "Modem not found" message.

When a modem is connected, check connection between SmartPTT Radioserver and the modem by clicking the Check Modem button.

The next step is to check the settings for outgoing messages and to send a test message.

 

Outgoing and incoming messages parameters

To set parameters for outgoing messages, select Settings in the setting tree of SmartPTT Radioserver Configurator. At that, the following window opens:

Outgoing messages

SMS Sending Mode – Text or PDU mode.

There are two ways of sending and receiving SMS messages: in text mode and in PDU (protocol description unit) mode. The text mode (unavailable on some phones) is just an encoding of the bit stream represented by the PDU mode.

Text mode can be used only for English, PDU mode and Unicode are used for all languages.

Unicode is the universal character encoding which provides the basis for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. Select Unicode, if other languages except English are used.

SMS Center – SMS message center number. If the number is registered on modem’s SIM-card, there is no need to fill this field.

Incoming messages

Delete after Receive – select Delete after Receive to avoid saving SMS messages in the modem memory.

Split Long Messages – if not selected, a long SMS message (over 140 characters) addressed to a radio is trimmed to size limit (i.e. some information gets lost). When selected, the original message is split into several packages during transmission. Thus, the radio subscriber receives the message without information loss.

Sender ID – when selected, the received message contains the sender phone number.

Test message

Make sure SMS messages can be sent to recipients from SmartPTT Radioserver. Use the Test Settings option to do it.

First, in the field Phone Number specify the phone number where you will send the test message.

Second, enter the text of the message in the field Message. And then click Send.

If the message is successfully sent, you will get a confirmation notification.

 

After succesful test, restart the radioserver. After radioserver restart, buttons Check modem and Send will become unavailable. This means you can start using your SMS gateway from radionetwork.

Using SMS Gateway

SMS from Radio to Phone

To use SMS Gateway functionality, radio user must write TMS of special format:

:&79123456789 Text of SMS

: - defines this message as attempt to send an SMS

& - used instead of "+" sign, as Motorola radios are not containing "+" on their keypads.

79123456789 - mobile phone number of recipient of message

space - designates the beginning of SMS text

Text of SMS - text to be sent through SMS Gateway

 

SMS from Phone to Radio

To use SMS Gateway functionality, mobile phone user must write SMS of special format:

:Radio_ID/IP Text of message

: - defines this message as attempt to send a message to radionetwork.

Radio_ID/IP - IP or ID of recipient radio. IP can also be group IP to perform group message sending.

space - designates the beginning of text of message

Text of message - text to be sent through SMS Gateway

 

Note: Total length of message sent from radio subscriber cannot exceed 140 characters.

When sending long message from phone to radio, checkbox Split long messages can be set to deliver long message as a series of smaller messages for radio subscriber.

Also, message can be sent to set of recipients, if their IDs or numbers will be separated with commas.

e.g. :100,150,200 Hello! will send TMS "Hello!" to radios 100, 150, 200 simultaneously.