As one of the effective and traditional communication methods, there’s a lot behind the scenes when you hit send SMS option.

This post will try to help you understand all about SMS, SMS gateway, and how it works.

What is SMS, what is SMS gateway, its history, and how does it work?

Short Message Service, the abbreviation concludes.

In technical, text characters are encrypted into signals and passed to far-away mobile devices via cell phone towers by adhering to a set of communication protocols called SMS.

With that in mind, SMS is a communication protocol created to communicate.

Neil Papworth sent the first SMS in the U.K. in 1992 to his client, “Director of Vodafone – Richard Jarvis.” Source

In 1993, Nokia introduced the feature of SMS.

How does SMS work?

Let’s say you want to text your favourite customer about your offer for the next two days. So you type that enticing offer and send it.

First, your mobile device converts your English message into bits of data (GSM 7 alphabet). After that, the cell tower receives your message and sends it to SMSC (Short Message Service Center).

The SMSC checks if the recipient is within the network range and then forwards it to their nearest cell tower and their mobile device.

The recipient’s mobile then turns the encrypted bit-data into an alphabetic and displays the message.

Within the process, if the recipient’s network is not in range, then SMSC will store the message until the phone reconnects when it sends the SMS immediately.

What is an SMS gateway?

SMS gateway is an interface that allows sending SMS in bulk over the carrier network (mobile operator). It uses an SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) protocol to route the SMS to the recipients.

Usage of SMS gateway

SMS gateway can be mainly used for A2P messaging (Application to Person), meaning one can send bulk messages from an SMS application like Digimiles to various recipients in one shot. It is also known as business SMS.

How Brands Can Leverage SMS Gateway?

• Introduce new products or services to the targeted audience.
• Strengthens customer engagement.
• Nurture leads.
• Boost sales and revenue.
• Collect feedback.
• Increase brand reputation.

Two Ways You can Send SMS Using SMS Gateway:

1. Via a rest API, developers can integrate the API in an application that triggers SMS automatically on-demand. Example: One-Time-Password.
2. Using a web dashboard, the customer can access features like uploading contacts via Excel file, creating and managing contact groups, sending SMS in bulk, scheduling SMS, viewing reports, etc.

If you’re an enterprise of any kind, be assured you can leverage our SMS gateway to automate important communications and grow your business. Contact us for a quote.