Testing SMS Sending + Receiving
Having a selection of old phones lying around comes in handy sometimes. Not just as a website test lab but also for other tasks.
This week I've been working on adding SMS-sending capabilities to a Domino-based website (using Twilio's API if you're wondering). In doing so I've been sending out a lot of SMS messages.
Being the type of person who goes a little OTT with things like this I've been sending to 4 different numbers!
To help me remember which phone has which SIM and is with which carrier, I made the page below:
I drew round each phone so I knew where it belonged and then wrote the carrier name above and its phone number below.
The Tesco SIM is my day-to-day proper number. The Orange SIM came with the Galaxy S3 (it was 50GBP cheaper if I bought it with a 10GBP PAYG card!!). The other two I bought for the task at hand.
The two new SIMs I bought cost 99p each and there's no need to top them up to receive SMS, as in the UK we don't pay to receive SMS.
At some point I may top them up though as I'm looking for a new carrier, because mine are living up to scratch. Lots of dropped calls and lots of calls just not making it through to me. Turns out I live in something of a black spot for mobile reception.
I surprise myself sometimes with how much of a nerd I am!
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Now the internet knows some of your phone numbers. Expect calls from SkyNet ;)
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I made sure to crop the photo to remove my actual number though ;-) Although it is out there on the internets anyway and not too hard to find should anybody want to.
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Long time no hear by the way! Good to see you still read!!
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I've been using Twilio for a few years, love their service and easy to use APIs.
What do you think of it?
If you do something cool with it, be sure to enter their designer competition they always have. I won a little netbook with my entry.
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I'm impressed so far. Nice and easy to implement.
My only source of frustration is that an SMS with a status of "sent" merely means it's left their system to the "upstream carrier".
To find this out I had to coax it out of them:
http://forum.twilio.com/twilio/topics/sms_test_number
Turns out there's no way to test how your own code handles status="failed" because they don't have a test environment, as such.
I'd have expected a way to test all eventualities using some reserved 555 number, like you can with the Visa 41111111... card number for payment APIs.
Impressed though and would recommend them.
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Are you integrating this into Domino or something else?
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Domino
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Hey Jake,
For the cell reception, look into cell phone boosters. I put a Wilson Electronics setup here at our plant and it works great. Depending on the frequency that you want to boost, you put an amplifier between the internal and external antennae.
Its funny how they can't tell whether the message made it or not. On my iPhone, when I send a text, it sometimes tells me the message was undelivered and that is to someone with a different carrier.
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