Email/web to SMS Gateways in NZ

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wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#84738 7-Jun-2011 14:02

Hi Guys,

The company I'm doing some work for at the moment uses Sonic Mobile to provide an email to SMS and web (via SOAP) to SMS from a CRM application.

What other reliable alternative companies do you guys use/had experience with? Obviously they're always looking ot reduce cost, but reliability is also a major factor. Thus far Sonic Mobile have performed very well for them.

Cheers!

Regs

4066 posts

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Snowflake

#478704 7-Jun-2011 20:25

if you're sending a lot of SMS, then buying packs in bulk from the likes of http://www.bulletin.net.nz/ can be quite reasonably priced. If you buy them just a handful at a time, then they tend to be more costly than overseas providers. They are definately one of the more reliable services around.

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

sleemanj

1490 posts

Uber Geek

#478723 7-Jun-2011 20:56

bulletin.net.nz is dead (their DNS is screwed up by the look of it), seems like they must be using .net TLD http://www.bulletin.net/

Love how it forces you to an SSL connection, but has insecure info on the page so their site winds up looking "insecure".

In any case, looking at the .net site, 17c/message seems to be it, compare to http://www.clickatell.com/ which is about 6.5c/message.

I use clickatell to send SMS from, well anything, they have several API's, I just use the SMTP one which essentially is "send an email, in this format, here". However, clickatell does have a problem (perhaps not just them), ported numbers here tend to get multiple copies of each message, you're only "billed" once for it, but somewhere along the line it starts bouncing back and forth for some time, I guess it's something about return paths or something and it keeps re-trying.

They don't seem to be able to sort it out :-/

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

Regs

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Snowflake

#478786 7-Jun-2011 22:49

looks like they've updated their website in the last few weeks. last time i was there they had a slider that showed the price per sms dropping to < 10c each if you bought a bundle of, say, 10,000.

clickatell, and other offshore providers, fall into the "unreliable" category for me given all the recent failings with delivery to NZ recipients. If the message is important, i'd rather pay a little bit more to get it delivered with some degree of confidence.

This thread had a lot of information on recent problems with providers and blocking (and it wasnt just limited to telecom recipients):

"Telecom NZ block bulk international SMSs"
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=80270

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

sleemanj

1490 posts

Uber Geek

#478801 7-Jun-2011 23:31

Mmm, I hadn't heard about that Telecom sillyness. Yes that does change it for a general purpose then, at least for Telecom numbers, of course, with number portability, we don't know what telecom numbers are any more :-(

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#478831 8-Jun-2011 08:22

Thanks for the info guys.

The company is sending around 5000 texts per month to all three mobile networks, which is a reasonable volume. But it would appear that unless they use an off-shore provider then the rate seems to be a standard $0.17 per message (+GST).

Reliability is definitely a big factor in the selection of a provider, but given the "Telecom NZ block bulk international SMSs" thread, I'm not sure that there really is a much competition price-wise.

jbard

1377 posts

Uber Geek

#478848 8-Jun-2011 09:16

These guys are in NZ: http://websms.co.nz/business_services.php

And its only $0.06 a txt, never used them but i have heard good things about them.

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#479395 9-Jun-2011 16:14

Great, I'll check them out! Thanks again guys.