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I want to do mobile phone based verification for users. I understand the code generation process and i understand maintaining cell phone carrier database. But to send the text, do I need a phone number or is it possible to use an internet address to send a verification code?

Vadim Kotov
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KPO
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5 Answers5

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You're going to want to use a service such as http://www.twilio.com/ to send SMS.

They have an API for sending SMS here: https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php

GeekOnCoffee
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There's a few good services out there for this. I've used Tropo and Twilio in the past, and both worked great. Tropo has pretty cheap international support and Twilio has better logs/analytics.

Jeff
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  • I knew about Twilio but it costs money. I was under the impression there is a free way to do it.. – KPO Mar 06 '12 at 04:26
  • Twilio and Tropo will both give you something like $10 or $30 worth of free trials. IIRC, that's enough to send something like 1000+ text messages – Jeff Mar 06 '12 at 04:28
  • @KPO In open source as well, there are some restaurants where there is no free lunch :-) – OM The Eternity Mar 06 '12 at 04:32
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I suggest you to look at Tropo, twilio if you are staying in their supported countries. else you can talk to local telecom operator to get the SMS gateway access then you can push your sms through the HTTP interface. if you choose to do all at your own then I suggest you to get a GSM modem and program it to push your messages.

San
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there is one more project on phone verifications http://mOTP.in mobile OTP without need of sms....good to give a try

niket
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You can text their phone by sending an email. Each carrier has their own email structure to message users - so what I would do (on a small scale project) is collect their phone carrier/phone number (user submitted). And in a DB store the addressing scheme for the different companies.

For example:

Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com ATT: phonenumber@txt.att.net

bMon
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  • This is a very bad way to handle it. There are services that are virtually free out there that do all the dirty work for you. – Jeff Mar 06 '12 at 04:23
  • Thanks bMon. I wanted to know your reason for saying on a small scale project. What is the problem if the same is done on a large scale project? – KPO Mar 06 '12 at 04:23
  • This method is bad for small and large scale project. It's not feasible to keep up with all different carriers and their SMS technologies. Let a 3rd party handle it for you and pay pennies per text message. – Jeff Mar 06 '12 at 04:26
  • @KPO For the reasons Jeff said - there are services that do it for you which will be better suited for scaling most likely. But thats not to say if you do it yourself it won't scale - you'll just need to test properly. And doing it yourself shouldn't be downvoted - its good to know how to do it for crying out loud. – bMon Mar 06 '12 at 04:27
  • Agreed with @Jeff its quite dirty and clumsy handle it.. let the masters do it for you.. rest you do it – OM The Eternity Mar 06 '12 at 04:28
  • @Jeff The key there is you are paying for it. Small scale project you can do it for free - hence why its good to know how to get your feet wet doing it manually. But I digress, pull out your CC and get it done right. – bMon Mar 06 '12 at 04:29
  • @bMon your statement is motivational, but if KPO is stucked somewhere in middle right now, then he must find the shortest path to resolve the need – OM The Eternity Mar 06 '12 at 04:29
  • @bMon I'm not downvoting the fact that it's good to learn, but it's just not realistic in almost any environment to create your own. The (opportunity) costs you or your company is going to assume while trying to roll your own automated SMS service far outweighs the costs of using a 3rd party. And it's not even close. – Jeff Mar 06 '12 at 04:31
  • Can anyone name a service that does this? – Samin Mar 20 '14 at 15:43