Introducing WinSMS - Offering top SMS solutions

WinSMS is a South African based, online SMS portal and solution provider with various renovating and useful products and product packages.

Table of contents

Introduction to WinSMS

WinSMS is a South African-based, online SMS portal and solution provider with various renovating and useful products and product packages. WinSMS forms part of Dolsin Business Solutions (Pty) Ltd. which focuses on researching and developing cost-effective messaging solutions.

Short message service (or SMS) is one of the older, but still popular ways for people to communicate with each other using their mobile phones. For the average person, WinSMS makes it easy and more affordable to buy SMS packages and send SMSs to multiple recipients.

WinSMS’ easy-to-use billing process allows for a set amount of SMSs to be purchased upfront which can then be used as is, or in most forms of their services. Single or bulk SMSs can be sent from a Windows PC or laptop through their Client Zone and/or Desktop Client or from a smartphone using their Mobi Portal.

Replies to SMSs are free and automatically send to your registered email address. By opting for replies to be sent to your mobile number instead standard rates will apply.

One SMS credit is up to 160 characters, but long SMSs up to 960 characters long can also be sent (for the equivalent amount of credits [960/160 = 6 credits).

The WinSMS Client Zone

After signing up for an account (try out their free trial now), everything is managed through their online WinSMS Client Zone. This makes it easy to buy and keep track of SMS credits and navigate through all the services they offer. Some of the highlights include:

Email to SMS
Microsoft Outlook Mobile Service
SMS Short Codes (paid for service)
SMS to international destinations (at additional rates)

Things such as their affiliate program, logs, download links, and API information is also managed from here.

WinSMS API

The WinSMS API functionality makes it possible to incorporate SMS sending and receiving services into custom programming for database applications, custom software, and websites. Various sample code for programming languages such as Python and PHP is supplied. This also makes for a good way to incorporate SMSs into home automation and home security projects.

Python example

This is an adapted Python script to send a desired SMS message to a desired cell phone number. The original example code is supplied to WinSMS by Piet Vermeulen and has been tested on a Raspberry Pi. Although it was made for download, WinSMS does not support this code or Python development.

#!/bin/python

import os
import urllib

def main():
  msg = "Sample test message"
  usremail = "myemail@domain.co.za"
  usrpw = "mypassword"
  cnumber = "0821234567"
  url = "http://www.winsms.co.za/api/batchmessage.asp?User=" + usremail + &Password=" + usrpw + "&Deliver=No&Message=" + msg + "&Numbers=" + "cnumber"
  print url
  f = urllib.urlopen(url)
  s = f.read()
  f.close()

if __name__ == '__main__':
  main()

The code above can be adapted to run as a terminal command as follows:

python sndsmstest.py $(Sample test message)

and use sys.argv to parse tokens/parameters.

Conclusion

WinSMS is a South African-based, online SMS portal and solution provider with various renovating and useful products and product packages.