I used to work at a place about 10 years ago where we had a cluster of six Android devices that we had used for our SMS gateway. At the time it worked fantastic, we eventually rolled off it to a different service. Somehow, we never ran into issues with carrier.
As others have pointed out, this kind of automated business use is very much against the T&Cs of carriers, so if you do this heavily you can expect to run into issues.
They can and do detect this kind of thing. In a similar vein there is also a whole industry in "sim boxes". Effectively a box of SIM cards / radio equipment that acts as a server. These can similarly be set up as servers to send SMS through carriers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_box ), though seemingly the popular use is to bridge VOIP calls to local destinations and sell "minutes" to others.
There is also apparently a whole industry in software to manage them. These days that management software allegedly includes measures to have the SIMs behave like humans to evade detection (the sims text each other, browse around, sleep for hours of the day, and so on).
There are so many interesting things that can be done with an Android phone.
Tomorrow, if the Google Play store decides not to publish this app, I can still install it via the APK file.
I wonder how many of these apps will be usable after Google's new rules about sideloading.
definitely a great setup for development, tho probably a good idea to have the Twilio integration ready to go.
legitimate messages or not, this will look like spam if you get a surprise burst of traffic. and providers will nuke your SIM, maybe blacklist your phone's IMEI, if they suspect you're using it for spam.
also is it weird that "That's its whole life now." made feel a bit sorry for the phone? might be spending too much time in opencode...
Easier to just use a usb/minipcie modem and operate directly from the 'server' - no batteries, no OS to crash, no nothing, simple AT commands on linux "middleware" (modemmanager etc.)
I remember having an old Nokia phone that would expose the AT command set over a USB tty, yet still be useful as a handset. This feature wasn’t advertised in the box, I found it accidentally. Would love to find a low cost phone like this again.
I can feel the 10DLC violations in the US already running through my blood. You will be eviscerated by the carriers for doing this for anything longer than a single day.
I hope your disaster recovery (or 'didn't realize') strategy includes a drawer full of additional burner Android phones and SIM cards.
I had a client once who used a USB SIM modem as an out of band alert system set to text IT staff if certain monitoring thresholds were detected connected —useful if the Internet post were damaged. At the time, 10DLC wasn’t a concern in the system was reliable (but low volume.)
Would such a system be untenable these days? Is it possible to provision a physical SIM that cannot legally be shut off, but is whitelisted to only 10 consenting numbers at a time?
I feel like people can fly under the radar on individual small scale use in-house, but the second you're trying to run a full scale public facing service with hundreds of thousands of messages originating off one SIM card you'll get lit hard.
I used to work at a place about 10 years ago where we had a cluster of six Android devices that we had used for our SMS gateway. At the time it worked fantastic, we eventually rolled off it to a different service. Somehow, we never ran into issues with carrier.
As others have pointed out, this kind of automated business use is very much against the T&Cs of carriers, so if you do this heavily you can expect to run into issues.
They can and do detect this kind of thing. In a similar vein there is also a whole industry in "sim boxes". Effectively a box of SIM cards / radio equipment that acts as a server. These can similarly be set up as servers to send SMS through carriers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_box ), though seemingly the popular use is to bridge VOIP calls to local destinations and sell "minutes" to others. There is also apparently a whole industry in software to manage them. These days that management software allegedly includes measures to have the SIMs behave like humans to evade detection (the sims text each other, browse around, sleep for hours of the day, and so on).
There are so many interesting things that can be done with an Android phone. Tomorrow, if the Google Play store decides not to publish this app, I can still install it via the APK file. I wonder how many of these apps will be usable after Google's new rules about sideloading.
Nice ai-written article but what I missed among all the slop is : where do I get a $20 phone?
EDIT: it’s a lie. At the bottom of the page : Dedicated device: Use a cheap Android phone ($100–200) with a prepaid SIM.
I've done this on symbian phone many many moons ago, for sms and mms messages. We all been there :)
definitely a great setup for development, tho probably a good idea to have the Twilio integration ready to go.
legitimate messages or not, this will look like spam if you get a surprise burst of traffic. and providers will nuke your SIM, maybe blacklist your phone's IMEI, if they suspect you're using it for spam.
also is it weird that "That's its whole life now." made feel a bit sorry for the phone? might be spending too much time in opencode...
What is dead may never die. :)
Easier to just use a usb/minipcie modem and operate directly from the 'server' - no batteries, no OS to crash, no nothing, simple AT commands on linux "middleware" (modemmanager etc.)
I remember having an old Nokia phone that would expose the AT command set over a USB tty, yet still be useful as a handset. This feature wasn’t advertised in the box, I found it accidentally. Would love to find a low cost phone like this again.
I can feel the 10DLC violations in the US already running through my blood. You will be eviscerated by the carriers for doing this for anything longer than a single day.
I hope your disaster recovery (or 'didn't realize') strategy includes a drawer full of additional burner Android phones and SIM cards.
I had a client once who used a USB SIM modem as an out of band alert system set to text IT staff if certain monitoring thresholds were detected connected —useful if the Internet post were damaged. At the time, 10DLC wasn’t a concern in the system was reliable (but low volume.)
Would such a system be untenable these days? Is it possible to provision a physical SIM that cannot legally be shut off, but is whitelisted to only 10 consenting numbers at a time?
I feel like people can fly under the radar on individual small scale use in-house, but the second you're trying to run a full scale public facing service with hundreds of thousands of messages originating off one SIM card you'll get lit hard.
Unlimited texts.
Nope. Sorry, it is unlimited texts for *personal* use --- as defined by the carrier.
Send "too many" and your account can be suspended.
Some carriers offer an email to SMS gateway so if you can send email, you can skip the $20 Android phone.
https://20somethingfinance.com/how-to-send-text-messages-sms...
You lose the authz of a phone number to send from. SMS gateways are super jank in my experience.
Wish we could axe sms and rcs, too
What in god's name is that cookie consent form
Maybe next he'll learn about sim900 and derivatives.
$20 and full android stack seems a massive waste for this, nevermind unreliable.
Find a 4g/5g board cheaper than an old phone?
Keep in mind though you may need to deal with encoding, chunking, and other low level issues.