What can you use to get an application to be able to receive SMS message?

Question

• Do you need to use some kind of provider?
• Can you setup your own SMS server?
• Does any open source solutions exist?

I am an SMS newbie so

Answer 1

I'm not up with Java, so here's a nice guide on how to do it in Ruby on Rails: http://www.lukeredpath.co.uk/2007/8/29/sending-sms-messages-from-your-rails-application

If you want to send 'true' SMS you'll need to use an SMS gateway, (use of one is outlined in the above guide).

You can use MMS to send messages, to an email address that looks something like 1234567890@ messages.whatever.com. You can use mail functions to do this. There's some information about that here: http://contentdeveloper.com/2006/06/open-source-sms-text-messaging-application/