Tip: Use XML to Send SMS Messages
By Nicholas Chase2005-04-11
What is SMS?
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Short Message Service (SMS) is the term used for short (typically less than 160 characters) messages that are sent between mobile phones -- instant messaging for the mobile set, if you will. It's hugely popular in parts of Europe and Japan, and is slowly gaining popularity in the United States. Typically, it works like this:
• You send a Short Message from your phone to your friend's phone. The message goes to a Message Center.
• If your friend is available -- meaning, her phone is turned on, and she's in the service area -- the Message Center sends it to her phone.
• If she's not available, the Message Center holds onto the message.
• When your friend becomes available, her phone requests the messages, which are then delivered.
In this way, SMS is more like e-mail than paging or cell phones, even though phones are usually where they come into play.
For some time now, these transactions have been carried out using HTTP, but each vendor has created its own implementation, leading to interoperability problems. To solve this problem, the SMS Forum has developed two specifications:
• Short Message Application Part (SMAP) is an XML format for the messages themselves.
• Mobile Message Access Protocol (MMAP) is a SOAP-based protocol for sending those messages.
In this tip, I look at how SMAP and MMAP work.
Tutorial Pages:
» Reap the benefits of MMAP and SMAP
» What is SMS?
» SMAP messages
» A Simple MMAP Conversation
» Message Responses
» Other Options
» Resources
First published by IBM developerWorks
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