If you are a T-Mobile customer and a user of the OneBusAway SMS interface, you've probably noticed that the service has stopped working in the last few days. The issue is that we use a free, ad-supported SMS service called Textmarks. T-Mobile recently raised the rates they charge services like Textmarks for sending and receiving SMS messages such that Textmarks can no longer afford to send free, ad-supported messages to T-Mobile customers.
I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this. OneBusAway has been lucky that we don't have any recurring monthly costs thanks to a generous donation of servers + hosting from UW CSE. Hopefully we can find some way to maintain SMS service that fits within the limits of our non-existent budget ; ) If anyone has any creative ideas or thoughts on potential solutions (SMS-email gateway, SMS via Twitter, etc) feel free to leave a comment.
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5 comments:
http://www.onlinetextmessage.com/
@windcaller: the problem is that I need to receive an incoming SMS from a user and generate a response. I don't think that service would help in my case.
Two thoughts.
1. Email to SMS http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/T-Mobile_Messaging#SMS-to-Email_Gateway - I thought OBA already had an email interface, but doesn't appear thats the case.
2. T-Mobile's wireless division is locally headquartered. I'd ring them up and see if they'd be able or willing to make some type of change to support the local community.
T-Mobile corporate: 425 653-4600
And suddenly it's working again.
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