"Mass" callout to mobile phones

[HortaCulture]

Hi all.

I am trying to find ways to alert a known group of mobile phones of an event, as cheaply as possible, using a kind of pub/sub paradigm.

Using SMS through a gateway service is certainly one way to do it but if the group becomes large, the cost starts to escalate.

Another approach might be to have a well known source phone number which dials out to each phone, perhaps with a recorded message, perhaps not. It could be that the recipient would see the id of the caller and that by itself would be enough to know that an event has ocurred and that they should undertake a second well known step (dial into a central number, go to WAP website, etc..). It seems to me that this should be very achievable but there has to be a better/swifter/cheaper way than dialling let's say 100 numbers sequentially through a modem. Does anyone know of any software/hardware we could get our hands on to assist with this? Can we simply dial out in some manner from the internet without a modem (a la Skype)?

We are a website running on Linux/PHP.

Thanks for any responses to what is a very general question. I have trawled through the internet trying to get some direction on this but find myself swiftly looking at low level docs when I'm trying to get an answer to a very high level question.

 

[kwing112000]

Maybe you could do it with some kind of text message from an email client with a distrubution list built.

 

[ISDNman]

You should reconsider the SMS idea. The advantage is the message is fully delivered.

If you call each phone then you need a lot of outbound trunk capacity (somewhere) to handle that or it will take forever.

Likewise, if they all need to call in to get a message you will need lots of trunk capacity for the inbound calls (and call processing capacity too) or again it will get bogged down and take a long time.

Maybe there is a way to get a discount for SMS messages to the group through the wireless carrier?

Good luck.

 

[donporter]

I would go with the Voicemail calling out. I need to find one that controls the traffic well so that it continue to try until it gets all 100 messages out. If it queues well then you will be find. There are some that will play the meesage for you when it hear someone pick up the phone.

 

[HortaCulture]

Thanks for the replies.

I came across a Czech technical report (

http://dsrg.mff.cuni.cz/publications/SkypeDemoTechnicalReport.pdf)

where they've implemented a virtual audio device in the kernel whereby multiple Skype instances can share the same ID. This suggests to me that multiple calls out could possibly be made simultaneously, from one source (SkypeIn) number.

I was looking for something a little easier though, lol, and remain hopeful.

 

[donb01]

I realize this is windows software and you are running Linux, but I am not sure if this company supports more OS than just Windows or not. You could also run the application under Wine or some other emulator. This is what I use and it is an excellent tool. I have used it to replace over 100 pocket pagers and make it possible to page text right to the cell phone. Since in my case incoming text messages are free it costs nothing to operate and only the initial purchase cost of the software.

go to

http://www.notepage.net

and have a look at the PageGate server. PageGate is a little program that runs on a pC someplace that is connected to the internet. You give it the names and numbers of all your cell phone users. When you buy it, you get to choose one or more ways to talk to it. You can talk via a serial port, TAP port, Web Client, GUI, and more. I use the GUI client - it is a little program that sits on the task bar. When the user wants to page someone they pop up the box, select the name (phone number remains confidential) type the message in the box and hit 'send'. If you enter a 10-digit phone number into the message the cell phone user can hit their send button twice to call back the number (at least for our users). You can send to one person, or a group of people. The message gets routed across the web to the SMS host of your cell phone provider, and they send out the message.

I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it has eliminated 100 pagers at $7.95 a month (and I paid $700 for the application and my chosen interface).

 

[GMgerry]

We use Whatsup Gold

http://www.ipswitch.com/Products/WhatsUp/

 

[aarenot]

Who is the cell phone providor?

 

[HortaCulture]

It could be for any network provider.

 

[ArchTelecom]

I like the notepage idea, except, keep in mind that sms or smtp delivery through cell providers is not always reliable. Pages can be delivered up to 24 hours later, but they are typically quick.

If you are just doing 100 calls, then something like this or the voicemail is the way to go. If you think you will eventually get big (1000+ calls) you may want to consider a third party company like West Corp who does this kind of stuff as a business.