any plans on having a SMS gateway?

[gatorrobin]

I recently got a mobile phone at Republic Wireless (closed right now to public). The main thing about their service is they want people to use WiFi as much as possible and it works really well for the most part (still fixing a few bugs). SMS messages can be sent to and from the phone through WiFi.

Does VOIPO have any plans to setup a SMS gateway so SMS messages can be sent to and from a SIP client?

[chpalmer]

off topic

A bunch of us here are really good at playing with... er I mean beta testing new products if they need any more help


/off topic

[VOIPoTim]

Technically, we have the ability to send/receive SMS messages on our DIDs now with that vast majority of our carrier partners so it's been on the radar.

The problem is that we haven't really come up with a good way to offer it in a marketable way due to the costs. Basically all of our carriers charge a small setup fee & small monthly fee for each DID activated for SMS (at least for receiving) and then around $0.01 per message sent/received.

Obviously SMS is a big profit center for wireless even though it costs very little to provide and it seems that the wholesale VoIP carriers have kept this in mind and want some 1000% profit margins in there too.

So with the current wholesale pricing for it, it's hard to figure out how to integrate it into our service in a way that's profitable (or even breaking even) but still at a pricepoint that people would find it useful.

Any ideas?

[FredFredrickson]

Timothy- I, too, am a republic wireless user. I would like to keep my current cell number, but I want to hold on to it in a cloud number. I am VERY anxious to keep my text messages that come in. I wouldn't mind texts counting as minutes against my account- i just NEED to keep texts and I NEED your cloud number services to forward to my republic wireless phone. I don't mind if the SMS gateway stays in a control panel on voipo.com. Please help!!!!

[Stingray2U]

I believe offering a fair price for texting would be the most reasonable solution. I would pay a relatively small fee for the texting to/from my number. And it should be completely optional. Just don't gouge like the wireless carriers, and we'll all be happy.