Ozeki SMS gateway features

Mobile network connectivity features

  • SMS modem: You can attach an SMS modem to your computer with a USB cable to send and receive wirelessly over the mobile network. In this case you don't need to sign up for an Internet SMS service. All you need to do is purchase a SIM card and put it into your SMS modem.
  • SMS modem pools: If you wish to operate several modems to increase capacity, or you wish to have several phone numbers, you can connect an SMS modem pool to Ozeki SMS gateway. Ozeki will handle each modem in the pool as an independent SMS connection, and you can use Ozeki's advanced routing capabilities to decide which modem to use for sending. The SMS modem pool is usually connected to your computer with a USB cable. If you use an SMS modem pool, you will have to purchase a SIM card for every modem in the pool. For example if you use a modem pool with 8 modems, you need 8 SIM cards and you will have 8 phone numbers to use.
  • Android SMS connection: You can connect to an Android mobile phone over Wifi and install the Ozeki Android SMPP gateway app to send and receive SMS messages from your computer.
  • SMPP SMS connection: You can connect to an IP SMS service using the Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP) protocol. Ozeki SMS gateway supports SMPP version 3.3, 3.4, 5.0. This protocol is used by Mobile network operators to exchange SMS messages. You can connect directly to an SMS Service Center (SMSC) using SMPP.
  • UCP SMS connection: You can connect to an IP SMS service using the Universal Computer Protocol / External Machine Interface (UCP/EMI) protocol, version 3.5 or higher, to connect to an SMSC over the internet or other private TCP/IP network. Some mobile operators provide UCP connections for higher volumes of SMS traffic.
  • CIMD2 SMS connection: You can connect to an IP SMS service using the Computer Interface to Machine Distribution (CIMD2) protocol, version 2 or higher to connect to an SMSC over the internet or other private TCP/IP network. This protocol is implemented by Nokia SMSCs.
  • HTTP client SMS connection: You can connect to an IP SMS services services using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This is a customizable connection type, that allows you to use HTTP or HTTPS. For HTTP SMS you can set client certificate and validate server certificates. By creating an appropriate HTML template you can connect to virtually an HTTP SMS service provider.

SMS routing features

  • Least cost SMS routing: Pre-route SMS messages based on phone number prefix or route costs to ensure optimum delivery costs.
  • Backup SMS routing: You can route a message to different connection in case the primary connection is not functioning. For example if the Internet fails, or your primary Internet based SMS service provider fails, you can automatically route the messages to a wireless connection (e.g. an SMS modem connected to your server with a data cable). Of course you can route the messages to other Internet based SMS service providers.
  • Copy messages: You can copy each message going through your system and forward it to a database for logging or to any SMS connection. You can make one or more copies and route them to your preferred destination, which can be a phone number, an email address a database or any application.

Phone number manipulation features

  • Sender number modification: You can change the sender ID as an SMS message goes through your system
  • Sender number pools: You can pick a number randomly from a list and use it as the sender ID in your SMS message. This is great if you wish to operate a modem pool.
  • Receipient number modification: You can change the recipient phone number. You can use this to reroute a message if somebody's phone number changes, or you can correct invalid recipient phone numbers by fixing the phone number prefix
  • Regular expression based phone number modification: You can write a regular expression to detect and change phone numbers for both sender and recipient numbers.

Message text manipulation features

  • Message text replacement: You can change the SMS message text on the fly by simply rewriting it.
  • Append text to the message: You can change the SMS message text by appendin an advertisement to the end of each SMS message, e.g. "Hello world - Sent by mycompan.
  • Word filtering: You can filter out unwanted words and replace their content to stars (****) or you can drop messages containing such words
  • Message encryption and decryption: You can encrypt SMS messages and decrypt SMS messages in the routing table.
  • Regular expression based modifications: You can write a regular expression to modify the SMS message text.
  • C# algorithm based modifications: You can write code in C# to change the SMS message text on the fly.

Message encoding features

  • GSM 7 bit message encoding: By default SMS messages are encoded using the 7 bit SMS alphabet.
  • Multipart SMS encoding: Messages longer than 160 characters (if the 7 bit SMS alphabet is used) or if they are longer than 70 characters (if the unicode character set is used) are split into multiple segments and are sent through the network according to the multipart SMS specification standards. The Ozeki SMS gateway does the multipart segmentation and reassembly.
  • Unicode character encoding: You can send chinese, arabic, hebrew and any other character supported by the unicode alphabet. Ozeki implements the unicode character encoding.
  • Binary message encoding: You can send 140 bytes of binary data in binary SMS messages. With Ozeki you can set all SMS attributes, so you can specify the binary message flag to set such data.
  • Application port numbers: Application port numbers can be used if SMS messages are sent through the mobile network. Both sender and recipient port numbers are supported. Port numbers are sent in the User Data Header (UDH) according to the SMS standard. To send a messages to a port number specify the phone number in the following format: +36201234657:7777 where 7777 is the port number (you can change 7777 to any port number you like). This format applies to both the sender and recipient numbers. Port numbers are often used if mobile applications running on Android or iOS mobile phones communicate with PC based services using Ozeki SMS Gateway.
  • Special message types: Ozeki natively supports WAP Push, SyncML, Voicemail notification, vCard, vCalendar and other native SMS message formats used in mobile networks.
  • Message encoding policies: You can set "don't transform", "best match" and "enforce charset" replacement policies, to do character set transformation. These are very useful because it gives you total control over which character sets are used when your SMS messages are encoded.

Application connectivity features

  • Excel SMS: You can use Microsoft Excel or a compatible word processor to send messages to a list of phone numbers
  • SQL messaging: Send and receive SMS messages from a database.
  • Text file messaging: Send and receive SMS messages by creating text files in a directory
  • Http SMS messaging: You can use the HTTP API of Ozeki SMS gateway to send and receive SMS messages
  • Standard User: With Ozeki SMS Gateway Standard user you can log in to the graphical user interface and you are able to send SMS. And you can investigate the details of the delivery of the message.
  • Autoreply SMS: Ozeki SMS Gateway has 3 type of Autoreply Users which are used for automatically replying SMS messages or forwarding them to any recipient. These users can work in 3 simple ways. You will see how to install and configure these users on Ozeki SMS Gateway to serve your needs.
  • E-mail to SMS: Ozeki SMS Gateway offers various methods to setup E-mail to SMS functionality. You can use IMAP, POP3 or SMTP to send and receive E-mails and convert them to and from SMS messages. You can put the phone number(s) into the subject line of the e-mails or you may send an e-mail to an address containing the phone number, such as +441234657@smsgw.yourcompany.com
  • SMS from/to Email through your Email Account: Ozeki SMS Gateway's E-mail User can be used for sending or downloading emails from a mailbox. For sending emails it should connect to your email account's SMTP server. For downloading emails from a mailbox it should connect to the POP3 server through your email account.
  • SMS from/to File: Ozeki SMS Gateway's File User is capable to send and receive SMS messages in different file formats. Simple, Text, Verbose, List, CSV, XML, SAP, ATF and KAL file formats are supported by the Ozeki SMS Gateway's File User. Your application can place these files in proper directories to send SMS messages.
  • SMS from/to FTP: Ozeki SMS Gateway's FTP to SMS Extended User can synchronize directories with SMS Gateway through standard FTP, FTPS or SFTP protocols. Incoming SMS messages will be uploaded and outgoing SMS messages will be downloaded from the FTP server. You can also look at the accepted file formats.
  • Start your Applications with SMS: Ozeki SMS Gateway's Application Starter User can run any process or application in case an SMS message arrives. You simply need to provide the file path. You can also fetch parameters from received SMS messages to use them as process parameters or command line arguments.

High performance features

  • Load balancing: You can setup SMS connection groups for load balancing. This means you can create multiple SMS network connections to IP SMS services or through wireless connections. If you include these connections in a group, and you route messages to this group, sending will be done using load balancing. In load balancing configuration messages are distributed among sending links according to the link's capacity.
  • Fail safe messaging: By creating SMS connection groups your messages will be sent even if a one or more members in the connection group fails. For example if you have 4 mobile network connections to 4 different SMS service centers (SMSCs), and any 3 of them fails, all your messages will still be delivered through the remaining last one.
  • Memory queues: The system stores message queues in memory for performance and keeps these queues in sync with the hard drive. Batches of 1000 messages are loaded into memory for sending cycles. This makes high performance messaging possible.

Reporting features

  • Reporting database: You can save all SMS messaging going through your system into a reporting database. In your database a database table will be created and updated. You have will have detailed information about all event related to each SMS that goes through the system. You can use Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Postgres and many other database server systems.
  • No loss reporting: This feature makes it possible to not lose a single record. If your reporting database goes offline for whatever reason, the Ozeki SMS software will store messages in a text file on the local hard drive until the reporting database comes back online. When the reporting database becomes available again it will push these messages to the database.
  • Low level logging: All connections provide detailed logging down to the protocol layer. You can check the exact protocol data units (PDUs) sent through the connections. This is very helpful in finding problems or figuring out why a certain message was sent in a certain way. It is also great in dispute resolution with customers and service providers.

Addressbook features

  • Addressbook builder: You can setup routing rules to automatically register sender and/or recipient phone numbers into an addressbook automatically. You can also define conditions, such as keyword filter to decide which phone number to record. This addressbook can later be used to send group messages
  • Addressbook export: You can export addressbook in various formats, such as Microsoft Excel xlsx, csv, text files, json files, etc.
  • Addressbook import: You can import your exported address books
  • Database addressbook: You can setup database tables to use as addressbooks. Ozeki can SELECT and INSERT addressbook records into these tables, and you can use them as you would use any other othressbook on the user interface. Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and several other database servers are supported.
  • LDAP addressbook: You can use LDAP directories, such as Microsoft Active Directory to lookup contacts

Authentication features

  • Standard system users: You can create user accounts on the Graphical user interface (GUI) of Ozeki
  • LDAP authentication: You can authenticate users using an LDAP server, such as Microsoft Active Directory.
  • RADIUS authentication: You can authenticate users using RADIUS
  • HTTP/HTTPS authentication: You can authenticate users using HTTP or HTTPS request. This allows you to authenticate your users using web services.
  • SQL authentication: You can connect Ozeki to a user database, and ozeki can lookup user accounts in the database using customizable SQL queries. Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and several other database servers are supported.

Security features

  • HTTPS: Https is supported for the Graphical User Interface (GUI), for the HTTP API, and for sending SMS messages to HTTP SMS service providers
  • SMPP client over TLS/SSL: When you connect to SMPP SMS service providers, you can use SSL.
  • SMPP server using SSL: You can offer SMPP SMS service to your customers using SSL links
  • UCP client over TLS/SSL: You can connect to UCP SMS service providers over an SSL channel
  • CIMD2 client over TLS/SSL: You can connect to CIMD2 SMS service providers over an SSL channel
  • Secure password storage: Passwords are store in an encrypted way in the system