Service Provider Connectivity
This page provides a detailed introduction
of how to involve service provider connections in SMS messaging using
the Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway software. You will be instructed how to install and
configure service provider connections using the graphical user interface of the
program, and how to view the logging of server events related to them. The
configuration steps will be explained using an SMPP service provider connection
as an example.
To be able to send and receive SMS messages, you need to
subscribe to the service of one or more GSM service providers. They deliver,
over the GSM network or the Internet, the messages you send to recipients'
mobile phones (or computers). Also, they deliver incoming messages to the
Gateway, which then delivers them to users and applications involved in SMS
messaging. The role of Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway in the process is to forward
outgoing messages to SMS Centers of GSM service providers and forward incoming
messages to users and applications in the program.
To enable the program to do this, you have to
install and configure one or more service provider connections and users
(and/or applications). For information about the installation and configuration
of users and applications, check out the
Users and Applications page.
You can install and configure a service provider connection
using the graphical user interface of Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway. To start
installing and configuring a service provider connection, click the
Add button
in the top right-hand corner of the Service providers panel on the left
of the Management Console interface. (To find out how to open this
interface, check out the QuickStart
Guide.)
You can also add a service provider connection by clicking
the Add service provider item in the Service providers menu.
After you have clicked one of these, the Add service
provider panel will show up on the right of the interface. The panel
contains a list of protocols you can install and use for communication with
an SMS service provider.
To send and receive SMS messages over the Internet or a
private IP network, you need to connect your PC directly to the Short Message
Service Center (SMSC) of a GSM service provider. For this connection can
select the SMPP (Short Message Peer to Peer) protocol.
To select this or any other protocol, click the Install link in the
respective entry in the list (Figure 1).
Figure 1 - Installing a service provider connection
When you have installed the SMPP Connection,
the Configuration panel will show up on the right of the interface.
The first tab of the panel is the
SMPP settings tab, which consists of a Connection and an
Identification section.
First,
specify the SMPP server settings. This information is provided by the GSM
service provider whose service you have subscribed to. The connection
parameters are the host name (sometimes only an IP address is given), the
port number, a username and a password. Service providers often use the
phone number of the service or the port number as the username.
Enter the information in the respective edit boxes (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Specifying the server settings
Then, specify the telephone number
assigned to this connection and the service provider connection name. To
facilitate identification and to avoid confusion, you should
name the connection after the GSM service provider. E.g., if you have set up an
SMPP connection with Vodafone, it is advisable to name it "Vodafone". Also, note
that different connections should be given different names. If you have
different connections from the same service provider, you can use different
but similar names for them,
e.g.: "Vodafone1", "Vodafone2" (or something of the like).
Enter the
information in the respective edit boxes. Remember to enter the phone number
in international format: starting with "+". You can check the overridable
checkbox to the right of the Telephone number edit box. This ensures
that you can replace the phone number specified in the Telephone
number edit box with a different one to be displayed as the sender
of an outgoing message. You can also replace the number
with (alphanumeric) text consisting of a maximum of eleven (11) characters.
Therefore, when a message is sent out, e.g. using the
Database
user, you can specify any different phone number or a name to be
displayed as the sender of the message.
Note that the phone number to be specified in the Telephone
number edit box is a mandatory value. If you leave the edit box blank,
and if the outgoing SMS message does not carry a sender phone number either,
the sending will be unsuccessful.
To configure logging, click the Logging tab in
the Configuration panel.
The tab has a Logging and a Log file settings section.
Here, you can choose whether to make the program write log entries about
sent and received messages in human readable format and/or log low level
communication. Choosing the latter option will make the program produce
logfiles containing binary codes representing the communication data.
You should check at least the Log sent and received messages in
human readable format checkbox, as logfiles can be useful in debugging
communication problems (Figure 3).
Figure 3 - Logging options
In the Log file settings section of the tab, you can
make specifications for the size and the number of available logfiles.
Log rotation saves disk space, as it ensures that older (and probably
no longer needed) logfiles will be automatically deleted from the log
directory, which is specified in the Log directory text box. By
default, the access path to the logfiles is:
C:\Program Files\Ozeki\OzekiNG - SMS Gateway\Logs
In the Maximum log file size text box you can
specify the maximum size of a logfile. Once this size is reached, a new
logfile will be created. Specify the number of kilobytes for the size
of a logfile by entering a positive whole number. By default, the maximum
logfile size is 8000 kB.
In the Number of rotated files text box, specify
the maximum number of rotated logfiles that are saved. Specify this
number by entering a positive whole number. By default, the number of
logfiles that are saved is 4 (see Figure 3 above).
If you are content with the default specifications, leave
the text boxes unchanged.
In the Connection tab of the Configuration
panel, you can define detailed protocol-specific options and
specify NPI and TON settings (in the left section) and you can make
communication link management settings (in the right section).
By selecting either of the radio buttons (v3.3
or v3.4), you can specify the protocol version.
You can specify the system type by entering its name in
the System type text box. The system type is for assigning
the protocol standard of the other side (SMSC). It is specified by the
service provider.
To specify the bind mode, select one of the three
radio buttons: Transmitter, Receiver or Transceiver.
The bind mode describes the way of communication between Ozeki NG - SMS
Gateway and the SMS Center of a service provider.
Select Transmitter if you use this connection only for sending
SMS messages.
Select Receiver if you use this connection only for receiving
messages.
Select Transceiver if you use this connection for both sending and
receiving messages.
In this section you can also find boxes for for NPI and
TON settings. NPI is short for Network Protocol Identification.
TON is short for Type Of Number. In each of them, you can enter numbers.
This information is provided by the GSM service provider (Figure 4).
Figure 4 - Connection tab
In the right section of this configuration panel you can
manage communication links. At first, in "Windows size" line you can increase
the window size, if your SMPP service provider supports windowing.
If you check the checkbox in the Communication link
management section, you can make the program send keepalive packets
to maintain connection. Proxy servers will drop a connection after a short
period of time if there is no activity on it. Keepalive packets are sent
during idle periods to keep the connection open.
In the Keepalive period edit box you can specify
the maximum length of idle connection between the Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway
and the SMSC. You can specify it by giving the number of seconds in numerical
characters representing any positive whole number. If you are content with
the default specification (30 seconds), leave this edit box unchanged.
You can also check the Slow down communication to
checkbox (you can provide the exact time in MPM) if your service provider
cannot accept messages at a high speed.
In Message submission tab there are two sections:
Delivery reports and Submit timeout handling. In "Delivery
reports" section you can enable Request delivery reports option.
Delivery reports give you message delivery status for submitted messages.
They are returned by the service provider when a message arrives to the
recipient handset. Then specify the date format used by your
service provider in delivery reports in Delivery date format line.
In Submit timeout handling sector you can specify
the preferred way to handle submit timeout. In the Submit timeout
edit box you can specify the maximum waiting time for an SMS Center response
confirming that your message has been successfully submitted. Successful
submission means that the SMS Center has accepted the message for delivery.
You can specify the waiting time by giving the number of seconds in numerical
characters representing any positive whole number. If you are content with
the default specification (60 seconds), leave this edit box unchanged.
You can choose how to consider a message you have sent
if there is no response from the SMS Center after the specified length of time.
Select one of the three radio buttons.
Select Sent to consider a message sent even if there is no
response from the SMS Center.
Select Not sent to consider a message not sent if there is
no response from the SMS Center.
Select Retry later to make the program try to send a message
later if the SMS Center has not confirmed its status as sent. Then, the
message will be placed last in the outgoing message queue and sent out
again when it is its turn (Figure 5).
Figure 5 - Message submission tab
In Message data tab you can see two sectors:
"Character encoding of text messages" and "Message data transport"
(Figure 6). First, you can specify the preferred character set (Default,
ISO_8859_1, UCS2, GSM7bit) and the character encoding policy (Best match,
Transform, Enforce).
Best match: Convert to preferred character set if lossless conversion is
possible. (Character substitutions are not allowed.)
Transform: Convert to preferred character set if possible. (Character
substitutions are allowed.)
Enforce: Always use the preferred charset. (Character substitutions
and character losses are allowed.)
Then you can enable one of the following options if it is required:
Use GSM 7 bit packed encoding, Encode @ sign as iso 8859-1
character, Convert incoming GSM 7 to iso 8859-1.
In "Message data transport" section you can enable segmentation and
reassembly (SAR), to automatically split outgoing messages and
reassemble incoming messages if needed as long messages should be sent
through the mobile network in several parts.
As some service providers might ask you to use TLV fields instead of the
standard SM field in this section you can select from these options:
Put UDH into TLV for binary SMS
Put UDH into TLV for text SMS
Put msg data into TLV instead of SM field
Figure 6 - Message data tab
The last tab is Encoding in Configuration
panel. There are the following sections: ESM Class field, Number
format encoding, DCS field, Service type.
In ESM Class field you can enable these options:
Put Delivery Report Req. into ESM class
Put UDHI into ESM class for text SMS
Put UDHI into ESM class for binary SMS
In case your service provider ask you to set ESM class field to 00 for
all messages, please make sure the following options are NOT
checked.
In Number format encoding section you can specify TON and NPI
numbers; in the other two section you
can specify DCS that determines the charset, the message class and
binary message encoding, and service type parameter of SUBMIT SM PDU (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - Encoding tab
The Configuration panel for service provider
connections contains a Connect automatically on startup checkbox
(in the bottom left-hand corner). If it is checked, Ozeki NG - SMS
Gateway will automatically initiate a connection with the SMS Center
when the program has started.
If this checkbox is not checked, the connection has to be
initiated manually.
To initiate the connection manually, click the Connect
link in the panel of the service provider connection (Figure 8).
Figure 8 - Links to operations
You can open the panel of a service provider connection
by clicking its name in the Service providers panel in the
Management Console.
The panel of a service provider connection consists
of three sections.
In the upper section you can find the name of the service provider
connection (with the name of its protocol in brackets).
You can see an icon showing if the service provider connection
is connected. If it is not, the icon is marked with an "x".
To the right of the icon you can find links to perform
different operations.
Configure: to configure or modify the configuration
of an installed service provider connection. Clicking this link will
take you back to the Configuration panel.
Events: to view the logging of the latest server events related
to the service provider connection. Clicking it will bring up the
Events panel containing the logging of the latest server events.
Connect: to connect the service provider connection with
the SMS Center.
Disconnect: to disconnect the service provider connection
from the SMS Center.
Uninstall: to uninstall the service provider connection.
In the middle section of the panel you can see some of
the most important configuration information.
The options that have been (re)activated
during the configuration are marked with a tick.
The options that have not been
activated or those that have been deactivated during the
configuration are marked with an "x".
In the lower section of the panel of the service
provider connection you can read some information about its protocol.
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