Bulk messaging is the dissemination of large numbers of

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

messages for delivery to

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

terminals. It is used by media companies, banks and other enterprises (for marketing and fraud control) and consumer brands for a variety of purposes including entertainment, enterprise and mobile marketing. Bulk messaging is commonly used for alerts, reminders and marketing, but also information and communication between both staff and customers.

Software

Software is required for sending and receiving bulk SMS, and various software packages are available. These software packages provide users with the opportunity to add as many phone numbers as required and these phone numbers can be managed in a variety of ways. Most SMS software applications allow the upload of lists of mobile phone numbers using a

text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operating ...

CSV file A comma-separated values (CSV) file is a delimited text file that uses a comma to separate values. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas. The use of the comma as a field separato ...

. Some sophisticated systems can automatically remove any duplicated or improper numbers, and the mobile numbers may be validated before sending the messages. With enhanced software features, messages can be scheduled to be sent at specific times and/or days and bulk messages can be sent on national and international mobile networks as long as the bulk messaging software provider sends internationally.

API

Most bulk messaging services use the following standard application programming interfaces (APIs) which allow programmers to add SMS functionality to any program: * SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol for Email) * REST (Representational State Transfer Protocol) *

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

(File Transfer Protocol) *

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) * SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer)

References

{{Reflist Mobile phones Mobile telecommunications Mobile telecommunication services New media Telephony Text messaging

Software

API

See also

References