Telstra is offering a developer preview for their SMS API, Connect API and Mobile Connect API. As a part of this, you can use the SMS API to send 1000 SMS messages per month. The caveat is "with restrictions on high volume and inappropriate usage"
Telstra API - Developer Access - 1000 Free SMS Per Month
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something about free enemas
Free is free…
you get to send a lot of sext.
Very cool, is there an expiry date on this?
nope. not for the foreseeable future.
Hard to believe Telstra giving away something for free.
we want to start building a connection with developers.
Hey Frank, congrats on the new role. (for others, Frank used to be the head of the Australian Microsoft Developer Evangelist team).
I also noticed the Telstra contest to do something-or-other with APIs. Shame that is advertised as "over $180K in prizes" - with the small print being "$1K in cash, and server hosting valued at $120K pa".
Anyhow … This API however is good and useful !
Hi davidmwilliams,
Could you provide some sort of link to this Telstra compeition as I cannot find it anywhere!
Thanks.
Telstra did 'give away' extra data on their broadband plans…
So what do we need to do to get this?
I just posted this for devs and app developers out there. AFAIK, there seems to be no expiry date at the moment. As per https://dev.telstra.com/content/sms-getting-started#send-sms it is 100 per day and 1000 per month
This is Telstra aka evil corporation.. expect for them to wait for you to incorporate this into your application etc, and then reneg on the deal and charge rediculous rates, leaving you having to recode, or pay up.
Totally agree with your sentiments, but if you make sure that you design your code correctly and loosely couple your code with the Telstra API, then nothing wrong with taking advantage of a freebie.
True, but I could see Telstra doing something dodgey like not giving any notice when it comes out of "trial" period. They should disclose this and the final pricing, otherwise it is only to be used for abuse, you cant use it for an actual product/service.
Edit: To be clear, I am not negging the deal - just warning people to only use it for abusing their enemys rather than use it in a valid product ;-)
Meh, the interface to a particular API can be easily made modular and would only account for a small fraction of the code.
You'd have to be pretty foolish to use a preview API in a production application, especially with these limits.
legendary post
a really useful additional API
appreciation and gratitude to you
give it a go and let us know what you think it
more APIs coming
It's how we OAuth.
APIs make me very happy :D
100 free sms a day, i could ruins someones life :D
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WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS!
Probably reddit.
I want
Wait, what!? 1000/month != 100/day
1000/month = ~32.87671232876712/day
they are two separate restrictions, you can't send more than hundred a day, say for a major event. But they are also restricting you from sending more than a thousand per month as well.
And (if you really did this) Telstra is a carriage service provider with a very helpful National Unwelcome Calls Centre (and sms's). :-)
https://www.telstra.com.au/consumer-advice/unwelcome-calls/c…
or
https://say.telstra.com.au/customer/general/forms/UNWELCOME-…
Damn only a Ruby API, no other programming language love?
Thanks for looking into it, saved me from signing up.
I'm definetly going to work this into an Angular project I'm working on at the moment. Cheers!
Not great for testing
Why not great for testing? You can use a REST api from just about anything/anywhere, that's what's great about it..
Doesn't get much easier than using curl…
currently no time limit on the offer — the only limit is the number of messages per month
there's a developer sdk - covers c#, objective-c, java, angular-js, php, phython & ruby
give it try and tell us what you like, dont like
frank arrigo
api evangelistis there a easy front end we can use?
eg put in the "yourapikey" and "yourapisecret"
with a mobile number and send messages?coming soon…
you can use CURL or powershell too
check out this article Sending SMS Through PowerShell with Telstra’s New API
hey mate, since you are ITK regarding this, how do I go about setting up callback URL when I am testing?
@spawnpoint: the callback URL is associate with the key on my apps - you set the URL by editing the app
I've built a script in Powershell similar to the script you linked to above.
Except instead of having to run a script every time to send a text, it creates a function so you can just type:
"sendtxt (phone no) "(message)"
Now I just have to learn PHP properly so I can chuck it on my web server instead of having to use my laptop. Wondering if Azure can do Powershell via Web?
I've got no idea, I'm a programming newb.
Script is here: pastebin.com/nmE5847n
What's the sender number or name on SMS sent via the API? Do I have any control over this?
Can I authenticate an existing Telstra mobile number to appear as the sending number?
@y:
I haven't tried it yet, but there doesn't seem to be any facility in the API to control the sender number. You might be able to set one when you log in to configure the app, but I'd expect that you can't change it on a per-SMS basis.
I've been using http://www.smsbroadcast.com.au/ and they have a pretty reasonable web interface, plus a great API. You can set the sender number or even a sender name (such as "YourMother"; up to 11 letters) on a per-SMS basis.
It has good logging facilities, and also supports the same kind of callback that Telstra's API seems to support.
For $99/yr you can even get a dedicated number just for you, but most likely you won't need it. If you send from their shared number, the system automatically routes replies back to your account. You probably only need the dedicated number if you want people to be able to send SMS to your app without first having to receive one from the app.
I've just poked around, and can't find much information on the Telstra SMS API other than that "getting-started" post and a few code samples. The SMS Broadcast API is much more complete…
I wrote a bash script that works in linux. Pretty straight forward as telstra's SMS API documentation is really helpful.
No you're a pikey
I've used this for SMS integration with an Electric Imp project I did recently. The Imp ecosystem uses a version of the Squirrel language. As long as you can make http POST and GET calls you can do what you need to.
Nice one Frank!
I was an attendee of iloveapis APAC — great to see you spruiking your product far and wide.
Will give this a look in the coming weeks.
good one.
please do give it a try and let us know how it goes.
btw - did u enjoy i love apis?
It was absolutely one of the better conference I've attended. Between the two tracks I was able to gain some pretty valuable insights, especially as we are about to integrate with some of "your" systems.
OzBargain should implement it as a widget, and sms deals to numbers.
triggered by topics of course..
triggered by posts by JV
this is something i would use
We would run out of free quota in less than a day.
@scotty: not if everyone gave their own API, which you wrote into a script to send to their mobile number..
ie if you want the service, sign up, give us the API details and your mobile, and we use your API to send to your mobile number.. :)
So what does this mean for someone on a plan with unlimited MMS?
I'm sure I am missing something here.
This is for software developers to send SMSs from within their programs.
nothing - it means nothing.
If you can develop your own app/website and link with api, then you can use it to send and receive sms
OP…
hen is an dev API deal coming with, eg, 1000 MMS's?
First word in above post was meant to be "When" if unclear…
Can only be used to send to Australian mobiles. While that limits my potential use, I still have some handy ideas that this could be useful for :)
Cheers OP
I've built a script in Powershell similar to:
http://blog.kloud.com.au/2015/02/12/sending-sms-through-powe…
Except instead of having to run a script every time to send a text, it creates a function so you can just type:
"sendtxt (phone no) "(message)"
Now I just have to learn PHP properly so I can chuck it on my web server instead of having to use my laptop. Wondering if Azure can do Powershell via Web?
I've got no idea, I'm a programming newb.
Script is here: pastebin.com/nmE5847n
here's pretty cool app someone wrote, that uses the SMS API.
source code is on github too
Opposite to the anonymous thing, does the API allow a fixed sender mobile number, e.g. my own mobile number?
The real entertainment is going through the message id's to read people's replys. Seems some harassment happened around 501. 520 made me chuckle.
Made a little demo by nodejs.
the api is easy to use. but the doc is really bad. for getting Message Response it even doesn't mention that needs http GET request. I have tried using post to get 404 for hours.demo:
https://tsms-mzbac.c9.io/source code
https://github.com/mzbac/sms
This 1000 sms per account or per approved "app"?
Any idea on pricing in the future?
Any to everyone; easy enough to wrap this code in your own structure and just change out the api calls and callback handlers. Functionality looks to be similar to the rest of the industry.
Nothing going to hold you to Telstra
Hmm… Not sure if I should switch to this or continue using the old method until it gets shut down.
Not sure why anyone is interested in this unless you want to use it for marketing or support messages … ie. you want to mass spam I mean provide useful products, information and services to your value clients.
SMS is still a very popular method of doing two factor authentication. Banks, Paypal and Facebook all have SMS authentication.
You cannot think of any valid reason to send an SMS from an application? What about alerts and reminders and two-factor authentication?
Or texting friends and family while overseas :) or texting using Net only devices
Emailed a while back and no reply from Telstra…
hey bragains - email me your question <frank DOT arrigo @ team DOT telstra DOT com> - or post it here
Someone got back to me only very recently! Thanks.
Dunno why free eMails wouldn't suffice - in lieu of costly SMS (SMS = the most costly chunk of data on the Internet) - w/ more frequent email server checks for emails at each end…?
Except for security tasks, why use SMS?
PS It's soon (like ~2023) going to be the same in Nuclear Energy, ie, after LIQUID-FUEL Molten Salt Reactors arrive on the market…
Ie: Why use high-pressure (requiring 20cm think core envelopes) LWRs, with their Costly+Wasteful Fuel-Rods (that come out - after only 18 mon - with ~99% of their original Energy UNUSED)…
Ie, when you can run MSRs (sans Fuel Rods) at 1 ATM core-pressure (inside much thinner = Cheaper core envelopes), & use up 99% of the fuel you pour in?
I guess you'd have to be getting kickbacks from makers of LWRs or their overpriced Fuel-Rods to want less safe, overpriced systems to persist, eh?
1000 SMSs - in a changing market, that's Including unlimited SMSs and even MMSs in plans, not to mention rolling unused data into the next month - seems a small "bribe" to dev's, IMO, for their support in keeping yet another overpriced data service alive, post 2015.
Why does Telstra try to live on such overpriced services, ie, rather than finding/buying more creative NEW products (like Google do)?
My 2.2 cents. :-)
Pps: Telstra should consider changing its business model, eg, by copying the eCommerce features & advantages of, eg, app AliExpress, rather than pushing old, overpriced services uphill all the time.
AliExpress discounts products if purchased via app; & app facilitates relationship - building with vendors, eg, if there's a glitch, you message vendor, who CARES, because AliExpress also provides an escrow service (vendor gets paid when customer happy). Check it out.
One app helps (pushes?) market players to lift their game (both buyers & vendors), rather than trying to squeeze $$ from ancient/obsolete/overpriced services, with low-value bribes (OK, nano-incentives) for developers, who choose to play ball, ie, rather than stretching their minds & skills into more creative app dev't.
What can think, dev's? …Telstra? :-)
Eg, to help folks, who are wrongly profiled by police, a dev't produced an app that continuously records audio & video, always keeping the most recent 1 hour of it, in case something happens (eg, car crash, being pulled over by police, being "carded" while walking down the sidewalk, etc.), that they are involved in.
I think the dev't has done more for the larger community than this deal encourages dev's to even begin to conceive.
'Just saying. ;-)
Im using this with my home-assistant box to send a text message when we leave a window open and rain is forecasted
So what is this in English Doc?