Once you are done reading this FAQ information, you may simply close this window
SMS is the acronym for Short Message Service. SMS messages are short text messages that are sent directly to a mobile phone. They are also known as text messages.
You can send an SMS message to any mobile phone on a GSM network.
Please note that many US cellphone providers are now blocking all SMS messages from external gateways. We're not sure if this is a short term or long term issue, but if you want to send SMS messages to a US phone, we recommend purchasing only a few credits to start with, and test to see if it works to the main phone numbers you are interested in sending to. Unfortunately there is not much we can do about this as this is a policy of the recipient network.
You can send SMS messages much like you do a regular email. Simply address a new message to <number>@sms, replacing <number> with the telephone number of the mobile phone to which you wish to send. You will need to include the country and area codes in the number. Hyphens can be included for readability, but are optional. For example:
1-555-123-1234@sms - US destination
61-412-123-123@sms - Australia destination
44-7912-123-123@sms - UK destination
In the above examples, the hyphens have been added for ease of reading, but are not required. See this link for a list of country destination codes
To send an SMS using your email client software like Outlook Express, simply place an email address of the form {number}@sms.messagingengine.com in the To: line of your email.
Note that you must have an SMS sending number set up in your default personality. To do this, login to your account, click Options, then Personalities, and ensure that the 'Mobile Number' is filled in correctly.
A quick and simple way to send an SMS is to use FastCheck. Just download and setup FastCheck from the previous link, then right-click on the FastCheck icon, select FastCommand, and type:
send sms to <number>
Then type the message to send into the Parameters section.
We also have support for automatically sending SMS messages to notify you of certain emails, based on your filtering rules. See the Rules section for more information as well as this FAQ entry below.
An SMS can be a maximum of 160 characters. This is a limitation of SMS, and not a restriction at our end. If you try and send an SMS longer than this, only the first 160 characters will be sent.
You must pre-buy SMS credits. Then each time you send an SMS message, one SMS credit is deducted from your account. If you do not have a credit at the time, the message will not be sent. Note that this may prevent you from being notified about incoming messages if you have set up rules to do so using SMS. To prevent this, you may want to set up your account to either automatically purchase new SMS Credits, or to notify you when you run low. You can do this, as well as manually purchase more credits, on the "Purchase SMS Credits" link in the "Options" screen.
Note that some messages may actually cost more than one credit. The difference will be deducted from your pool when the message is delivered (so there may be a short delay after you send a message before your credit balance is accurately displayed). See the SMS Pricing Guide for a list of areas and how many credits it costs to send to each.
Note: Only paid accounts can send SMS.
You can purchase SMS credits from the 'Options' -> 'Purchase SMS credits' screen. However, you will need to have enough funds in your account pool before you can purchase SMS credits, so if you don't have enough funds, first go to 'Options' -> 'Add funds' and add the required funds to your account pool.
An SMS credit costs 12 cents. Note that some messages may actually cost more than one credit. See the SMS Pricing Guide for a list of areas and how many credits it costs to send to each.
You can set the sender number that should appear on the SMS from the Personalities screen.
Unfortunately, recently some network operators are marking all incoming SMS messages which do not initiate from an actual mobile phone with a single specific number. This means that all messages from any form of web-based SMS are marked with the same sender number/initiator ID. We have no idea if this is going to be a short term issue or more long term, but there is nothing we can do about it, it's a policy of the recipient network, not the sending network.
You can check the status of your SMS messages by clicking on the 'Options' link in your account, and then 'SMS Sending Log'. This will give you a log of all SMS messages you have sent in the last month and their status from our SMS provider.
Additionally, you can click on the 'Detail' link associated with each SMS to get a details log of the delivery attempts for each SMS. This is pulled directly from our SMS provider.
There are many possible reasons for this. The SMS may be delayed in some system along the way, and may be delivered shortly. There may be some routing problem between the SMS providers. The receipient network may be blocking and dropping external messages. The moon may be in the wrong phase!
Unfortunately, SMS is not an entirely reliable transport system. Generally what we've found is that if sending to a particular number works the first time (eg. a particular user on a particular network), then it's pretty reliable. If sending to a number doesn't seem to work, then it's probably some sort of network inteconnect/blocking problem, and there's not much we can do.
Still, there aren't any guarantees, and we've tried to provide you as much information as possible. By going to the "Options" -> "SMS Sending Log" screen and clicking on the "Details" link of a message, you can see all the details about how the message was routed and what happened to it as retrieved from our SMS provider. Unfortunately this is all the information we have, so if it says the message was SENT or DELIVERED, but it really never arrived, there's really no more information that we can provide that isn't in this log.
Maybe.
If the SMS is refused delivery via our SMS gateway, then no, you will not be charged. You can see this situation by going to the 'SMS Sending Log' screen and looking in the 'Status' column.
If the SMS is accepted for delivery via our SMS gateway, but subsequently for some reason does not arrive, then yes, you will be charged. The reason for this is that SMS messages are delivered to the recipient's mobile by passing it from one network to another network. We pass your email to our SMS gateway, and they 'route' the SMS to the recipient through the appropriate networks. Unfortunately, delivery of the SMS is not guaranteed, as multiple networks are involved, and anyone may drop it. Once our gateway accepts the SMS, they charge us for it, and this is why we charge your credits once an SMS is sent.
Yes. You can set up a forwarding rule in your 'Options' -> 'Define rules' screen to alert you via SMS. In the 'Forward to' field of the rule, enter your mobile number, and in the 'Forward type' field, choose one of the options that starts with 'SMS'. To learn the different types of forwards, see this FAQ entry.