SMS gateway

An SMS gateway is the service that connects a website or an application to the carrier network, injecting messages into it without a SIM card.

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In brief

An SMS gateway is the service that connects a website or an application to the carrier network, injecting messages into it without a SIM card.

Going deeper

A gateway takes a send request from a web form or an API, converts it into the format carriers expect, and hands it to the network. That is what lets a site send a text straight from a browser, with no SIM card and no phone involved.

The recipient then sees the gateway's number, shared across all sends, rather than the sender's own. Replies therefore come back to that line: they do not reach the person who wrote the message directly.

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SMS-C (operator's server)The SMS-C is the operator server that receives, holds and then re-sends SMS as long as the recipient is unreachable.Alphanumeric senderAn alphanumeric sender, or Sender ID, displays a brand name in place of a number as the originator of an SMS, within a limit of 11 characters.

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