Lab 1: SMS Services

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Lab 1SMS Services
MIT D-Lab ICT4D
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Intro to Lab Sessions

• Goal Give overview and examples to jump-start
  you
• Three Sessions
• SMS applications
• J2ME (on-the-phone apps)
• Advanced features (NFC, Location, MMS, etc.)
• But we cant teach everything in 3 sessions!
• youre expected to study and follow-up on your
  own
• well just give you simple educational examples
  not necessarily the best or most scalable
  solutions
• youre welcome to use other tools and techniques
  not taught in class
• These tools are works in progress -- Youre
  welcome to help!

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Recap Mobile Phone Capabilities, Apps

• SMS (Text Messaging) based services
• send text commands, receive info
• receive alerts and subscriptions
• MMS (Multimedia Messaging) based services
• send and receive multimedia to/from server
• J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) applications
• programs running on the phone
• e.g., games
• Internet/Web services
• via WAP (limited) and/or GPRS (dialup-speed
  connection)
• via 3G (broadband speed connection)
• Location-based services
• services that make use of location of users
• Micropayment applications

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Example SMS Job Finder Service

• Service On-Demand
• User texts FINDJOB to 123
• e.g., FINDJOB DRIVER
• Service responds (via SMS text message) with
• Agency JobsRUs. DRIVER needed as of 2/1/08, Call
  [phone]
• Subscription Service
• User can subscribe to alerts
• e.g., FINDJOB SUBS DRIVER

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Mobile Value-Added Services (VAS) Architecture
3rd party app providers (aka content providers,
CPs)
small 3rd party CPs
Users
direct connection
MNO
aggregator
SMSC
VAS gateway
in-house apps
private service via GSM modem or phone
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Writing SMS Apps Three Options

• direct to Mobile Network Operator
• via Aggregator
• using GSM modem or phone

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Tools

• Open Source
• Kannel
• SMSLib
• Gnokii, etc.

• Commercial
• Aggregators
• e.g., Clickatell
• Libraries for Using Private Lines
• e.g., NowSMS, WinSMS, etc.

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Programming Options

• Protocols
• direct via language-specific API
• TCP/IP-based protocols
• e.g., CIMD, SMPP, etc.
• HTTP-based protocols
• GET, POST, XML-RPC
• Languages
• Java, PHP, anything
• Note probably also need
• backend database
• web front-end

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Legal Disclaimer

• The information here is for educational purposes
  only
• We assume your programs will be used for
  private/personal use only
• If you want to do a commercial or high-volume
  application, you may have to contact a mobile
  operator or an aggregator in your target market

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Lab Examples
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Writing an App (Easy!)

• public interface SMSApplication
• public SMSMessage onSMSMessageReceived(SMSMessa
  ge incomingMsg)
• public void setSMSSender(SMSSender sender)
• public interface SMSSender
• public boolean sendSMSMessage(SMSMessage
  outgoingMsg)

IMPLEMENT THIS
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How to connect your app

• Via Java
• via GSM modem adapter
• via SMSLib
• via HTTP GET adapter
• connecting from Kannel or other gateways
• (via email adapter)
• Alternative PHP

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Other Issues

• Databases
• Web Interface

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References

• See ict4dlab.org for more info and links
• This is under development, so visit often for
  up-to-date info

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Application Design Tips and Tricks
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Caveats

• Watch how you keep state
• if you are running app from command-line, state
  that is not written to disk or persistent
  database will get lost when you run the app again
• similar issues with web-based solutions

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Caveats Security

• Watch for SQL Injection attacks!

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General User-Interface Tips

• Make inputs case-insensitive
• Also whitespace insensitive
• Avoid hard-to-type characters
• Try to use keywords in T9 dictionary (or compound
  words composed of such words)
• Reply-based interfaces
• keep per-user state of last transaction
• enables simpler Reply with commands
• e.g., Reply NEXT to continue to get more info