In this page you can find information about the most widely usedSMS protocol, the Short Message Peer-to-Peer Protocol (SMPP).You will get an introduction to basic SMS concepts, you willlearn how SMS relates to SMPP, and you will find some documentsand diagrams that will help you understand this technology better.
What is an SMS protocol?
An SMS protocol is a communication rule set, used for sending short text messagesin the mobile telephone network. It is also referred to as a text message service component of a telephone, Internet, and mobile device network. It uses standard messages thatare sent through the network that contain all the necessary information (includingsender phone number, recipient phone number, delivery report flag, message text, etc)that let mobile devices exchange short text messages.
How the sms protocol is used?
The SMS protocol is utilized by software applications connected to SMS gateways when office users or automated messaging software send bulk messages to mobile phones and other devices capable of receiving SMS messages. This same protocol is alsoused to receive SMS messages.
Is SMS a TCP or UDP protocol?
In short SMS is a TCP protocol. To be more precise SMS refers to theShort Message Service (SMS) that is used to transfer text messages in themobile network over TCP/IP. the protocol used to transfer SMS messages over the Internetis called SMPP protocol. It is a client server protocol that requires an SMPP server such as Ozeki SMS Gateway and an SMPP client.
In order to transfer SMS messages through the Internet a protocol stack is set up. This protocol stack uses a TCP/IP channel. On top of this communication channel optionally a security protocol layer is added. This layer is called TLS or SSL. This security layer is responsible for the encryption and decryption of the communication. Thesecurity layer is only used if a Secure SMPP servercalled SMPPS server is used on the server side. Inthis case both the SMPP client and the SMPP server is required to communicateover TLS. Ozeki SMS gateway support SMPP protocol stacks with and without thesecurity layer.
Over the security TLS layer SMPP is used. It is a communication channel, thatis responsible for carrying text messages (SMS messages) overthe Internet. SMPP is used by many SMS service providersto exchange SMS messages between each other. SMPP is also used by computer applications to send SMS messages to SMS service providers.
In 2024 another layer is needed above the he SMPP layer, because the SMPPlayer does not support multipart SMS transmission. This layer is called the segmentationand reassembly layer. If an application sends a text messages longer than 160 Latincharacters or 70 Unicode characters, it needs to be sent in multiple parts. Thisis called multipart SMS technology. Ozeki SMS gateway adds this messages segmentationlayer to the SMS protocol stack so both short and long text messages can be sentreliably.
Download the SMPP protocol specification
The SMPP protocol is defined in a PDF file. The PDF contains the specifications maintainedby the SMPP Forum, that acts as a standardization body for this protocol. The SMPP specificationis evolving and is labelled by version numbers. The most widely used version is SMPP v3.4.
You may download the SMPP protocol from the following link:
Download SMPP Protocol Specification v3.4 (pdf)
