The Now SMS & MMS Gateway is an extremely powerful and flexible tool deployed by over 3000 customers in more than 125 countries on six continents and dozens of island territories in between. However, it is unusual for any one NowSMS installation to make use of all of the features of NowSMS. It is more typical that customers will use only one, or a few, of the many features of NowSMS.
Below are some of examples of the more common ways that different customers use NowSMS. It is by no means a comprehensive list of usage scenarios.
- SMS Server Gateway – NowSMS can manage simultaneous connections to one or more SMSCs, supporting the major SMSC protocols, including SMPP, UCP/EMI, CIMD2, HTTP, and/or GSM modems. NowSMS handles the low level protocol details, and makes it easy to switch between different providers, as well as making it easy to add additional connections for situations where it is advantageous to route messages for different countries via different providers.
- 2-Way SMS and MMS Application Enabler – NowSMS is a great tool for enabling rapid development of interactive SMS applications and services. When NowSMS receives an SMS message, it can be configured to dispatch that message to a script running on an HTTP server, to a local executable program, or local script or batch file. This provides a simple way to get received messages into an application, so that the application can perform custom processing on the message. The application can generate a simple reply back to the received message, or perform more advanced application specific logic.
- MMSC – NowSMS is an Multimedia Messaging Service Centre, or MMSC. It has the capability to support person-to-person (phone-to-phone) MMS messaging, as well as application-to-person and person-to-application MMS messaging. MM4 support enables these mobile operators to interconnect their MMS platform with other mobile operators. Over 30 mobile operators are using NowSMS as an MMSC to enable multimedia messaging on their networks.
- MMSC for Application to person messaging – In many environments, NowSMS is implemented as a secondary MMSC to enable application to person MMS messaging, while another MMSC provides person-to-person MMS messaging services.
- MMS Server Gateway – NowSMS can interface to existing MMSCs using MM7, MM4, or EAIF. It can also interface to operator MMSCs over a GPRS modem using MM1. NowSMS handles the low level protocol details, and makes it easy to switch between different providers, as well as making it easy to add additional connections. (NowSMS even supports many of the non-standard protocol variations deployed by major MMSC vendors.)
- WAP Push Proxy Gateway (PPG) – NowSMS makes it easy to send WAP Push messages, supporting push message submission via a simple HTTP interface, as well as support for the more advanced Push Access Protocol (PAP) interface. NowSMS also includes support for Multimedia WAP Push, which can be used as a lower cost alternative to MMS for the delivery of multimedia content.
- OTA Provisioning Gateway – NowSMS supports OTA (Over-the-Air) provisioning based upon the Nokia/Ericsson OTA specification, and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Provisioning Content specification. These protocols allow browser, messaging and synchronization settings to be sent to devices over SMS. OMA Provisioning also supports additional setting types, such as those used for Push-to-Talk, e-mail, and more.
- Digital Rights Management (DRM) Enabler – NowSMS provides a simple interface for sending out MMS or WAP Push messages with DRM Forward-Lock enabled. NowSMS also supports the encoding of more advanced DRM rights messages by supporting OMA DRM 1.0 with full support for both combined delivery and separate delivery. NowSMS also supports ROAP Trigger messages (root XML element <roap:roapTrigger>) as defined in the OMA DRM 2.1 specification.
- SMSC Multiplexer – NowSMS allows multiple applications to share SMSC connections by functioning as an SMPP server. Applications designed to submit messages using SMPP can connect to a NowSMS server, and NowSMS can route the messages over any of its supported SMSC links. NowSMS can also support multiple clients connecting in to submit messages over an HTTP/Web interface.
- E-Mail to SMS or MMS Gateway – NowSMS can be configured to provide bi-directional e-mail to SMS and MMS support.
- Testing Tool – Because NowSMS supports a wide range of protocols, NowSMS is a popular tool for device manufacturers and testing labs.