Thanks Alex for educating me. I am a web developer and use Tropo/Twilio for applications. The high cost of SMS is prohibiting any credible development using voip. I still use mobile networks to do them. <br><br>I would love to see the same prices for SMS as they are for calls. <br>
<br>Benoy <br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Alex Balashov <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:abalashov@evaristesys.com">abalashov@evaristesys.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
On 10/12/2010 09:27 PM, Benoy Jose wrote:<br>
<br>
> <a href="http://www.twilio.com" target="_blank">www.twilio.com</a> <<a href="http://www.twilio.com" target="_blank">http://www.twilio.com</a>> , <a href="http://www.tropo.com" target="_blank">www.tropo.com</a><br>
> <<a href="http://www.tropo.com" target="_blank">http://www.tropo.com</a>> do pretty much the same thing.<br>
<br>
Not exactly; these cloud providers cannot be lumped into the same<br>
category. They may seem that way to someone not familiar with the<br>
industry, but the nuances are rather important.<br>
<br>
Twilio & such expose very high-level APIs that allow a certain degree<br>
of outside application plumbing. This serves a very particular<br>
market: developers who are not telecom and telephony experts, and<br>
just want to leverage their existing core competencies to add<br>
telephony components to their applications and services. For example,<br>
using a service like Ifbyphone, a web developer can enhance an online<br>
shopping cart to place a call to a customer-provided telephone<br>
provider upon order submission and ask them to enter a PIN via TTS to<br>
confirm that it is a real person, through a REST type API. They can<br>
do all this without having to learn and deploy Asterisk, procure SIP<br>
trunks or TDM circuits, and generally venture outside of their core<br>
business domain.<br>
<br>
Cloudvox does that too, but Cloudvox offers a much broader array of<br>
developer-friendly interfaces, including native AGI and AMI. The<br>
original poster asked about moving his existing Asterisk setup "into<br>
the cloud," presumably without a loss of functionality or feature<br>
depth. Troy's response about Cloudvox was much more appropriate to<br>
the original poster's question than Twilio or Tropo.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Both of them seem to be cheaper than cloudvox. What I dont understand<br>
> is the ridiculous price for SMS on all three platforms 2-3c a message.<br>
> Even the monster cell phone networks like AT & T and verizon are cheaper.<br>
<br>
</div>Originating SMSs on a large scale via IP is a very expensive business<br>
that subjects you to a small, secretive oligopoly/mafia of providers.<br>
Becoming an SMSC yourself just has a high cost basis, too, that is a<br>
large fixed cost relative to the volumes of cell carriers. It's not<br>
arbitrary pricing; I think these guys would love to drop it.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
--<br>
Alex Balashov - Principal<br>
Evariste Systems LLC<br>
1170 Peachtree Street<br>
12th Floor, Suite 1200<br>
Atlanta, GA 30309<br>
Tel: +1-678-954-0670<br>
Fax: +1-404-961-1892<br>
Web: <a href="http://www.evaristesys.com/" target="_blank">http://www.evaristesys.com/</a><br>
<br>
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