I got a question regarding sending SMS messages a couple of times in the last week, so I thought I post a note here quickly.

If you need to send SMS messages to a cell phone you can usually do so via email. Email is by far easier than to deal with than some of the SMS protocol servers/providers out there and. Most cellular providers offer email addresses to their phone customers to send messages to.

All of the US providers do this by using the phone number followed by a special domain name:

Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com

T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

AT&T: phonenumber@mmode.com

When sending SMS to somebody keep in mind the following:

• SMS Messages may be charged to the recipient depending on call plan
• SMS Messages aren't email and often get truncated if too long. Treat SMS messages as little reminder notes and if necessary include a link in the message to get more information.

SMS is an easy way to get notified with push technology. Messages are nearly instant and travel with the user wherever the phone goes.

It may seem like a little thing, but I rely on SMS for notifications from my Web Server in a variety of ways.

Most importantly I'm running West Wind Web Monitor on my site to notify me whenever a site is down or not returning known responses. West Wind Web Monitor checks for invalid output or failures and immediately sends a message. It also tries to fix the problem on the server (in most cases by resetting the Web Service with IISReset) and then notifies me again if it fixed the problem – ie. a good response comes back. SMS is a great way for me to get notified – I can see the Web Server going down and if I don't see an up-message a few minuntes later I know I better check on the server to see what's going on. It's rare that this happens but it's saved my ass on a few occasions.

Another thing I use SMS messages for is in my eCommerce site. Most orders processed in the store automatically process and are confirmed to customers right away. But some orders require manual offline checking for upgrades or previous purchases and such and those I get notified via SMS immediately so I know that I need to process these orders. I can actually use my Phone's browser to do this wherever I'm at by using a Mobile Form interface to process the orders after reviewing the order.