[A83] Re: [OT] What's a GMS?

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[A83] Re: [OT] What's a GMS?


SMS stands for Simple Messaging Service.  Most newer cell phones now have
this feature, at least in the US (from what I've seen).  I have service from
AT&T in Phoenix, AZ, and get (I think) unlimited SMS and email on my phone
(I have their cheap Nokia model, some 5000 series, I do believe).  SMS lets
you send a message to another cell phone from a cell phone, and receive
messages sent from a web/email SMS gateway.  For example, sending an email
to 6027589103@NOSPAM.mobile.att.net will send it to my phone.  It's limited
to somewhere like 140-200 characters.  The phone can also be used to send
email (although as you can imagine, typing on a phone keyboard rather limits
the usefulness, even with the built in dictionary).

While not incredibly useful for communicating with people directly (easier
just to call), there are a lot of uses for them.  The company I work for
uses them to automatically page netops employee's phones when the machine
watch program thinks a server is down.  When you have a website or other
service that needs to be up 24/7, it's useful to setup a cron job that runs
on another server, preferably at a different data center, that checks every
minute and pages you if it appears to be down.

I've thought of doing some other stuff, like having an AIM or ICQ bot check
my account to see if I am idle for a certain period, then log me in and
forward all messages to my phone (maybe with the option to reply from the
phone).  There's probably stuff written already to do this, but I haven't
ever looked.  It would be nice if a client could do this for you, to avoid
having to log you out.

I am guessing that Genie SMS is his cellular provider.  GSM stands for
Global System for Mobile communications.  It's open and non-proprietary.  It
is used in throughout Europe and many other countries.  Phones that use GSM
can usually have "roaming" access in any area that provides GSM service
(although most providers charge exorbitant roaming fees).  Unfortunately
there is no standard like this in the US.  Roaming is generally not a
problem (except for the fees), but if you change cellular providers, you
almost always have to buy a new phone (which can be expensive).  Nokia and
probably others have GSM equipped phones that work in the US and Europe, but
all the ones I've seen are much higher than the cheap models that most
people get ($300+ compared to $50-$100).

> What's a Genie SMS? is it some sort of email pager?
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