I have trunks and numbers setup using Skyetel as the SIP provider. I have people that use both Sangoma Connect and Clearly Anywhere softphones that can access extensions and work well on my freePBX. From what I think I understand from googling everything I can think of online, both only work with SMS messaging through their respective preferred SIP provider.
I want to enable SMS messaging capability in the softphone app. Has anyone setup Skyetel’s SMS texting capability to work with either Sangoma Connect or Clearly Anywhere softphones?
Any help in how to configure it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
This is what I’ve found to be the case so far with Sangoma Connect and Clearly Anywhere.
But since other SIP providers offering SMS and MMS on their trunks seems to be pretty common, I have to assume that someone has a softphone that can use messaging with other providers? Maybe?
I’ve yet to see one, I might be wrong but SMS doesn’t have a standard implementation in the way that SIP does and therefore requires more engineering to implement for each provider.
That’s correct. With that being said, I’d suggest that Sangoma/FreePBX should set their standards how they expect incoming SMS as well how they will be sending SMS, and it’s up to you to build a little middleware/gateway to parse and reconstruct the data to meet your SMS provider and Sangoma/FreePBX’s requirements.
You are not correct here. Both Sangoma Connect and Clearly Anywhere connect to FreePBX messaging system for sending and receiving. FreePBX messaging system is where you would have to connect your SIP provider to and figure out how all the internals work on this. It’s not something Sangoma has chosen at this time to document or provide any insight into this but others have figure it out in different ways. It’s doable.
What “others” have figured it out except the original cohort of engineers that developed it and therefore could rewrite the code from their memories?
I don’t see how it’s possible to figure it out without running afoul of the license. The “FreePBX Commercial Module EULA” found in the LICENSE file of the sms module and sipstation module state clearly that you may neither copy nor reverse engineer. So even looking at the code in those modules and then “figuring it out” can be challenged as a license violation. Therefore I’m curious who has been able to do this legitimately.
I know of 2 other companies that have it working. It is not my place to name them but you can figure it out without having to dig into code. The messages are stored in a database. All you have to do is come up with your own way of putting in there and reading them from the DB for inbound messages. No need to look at code or reverse engineer anything since you just putting and reading from databases.
The way we do it with clearly IP is completely different then how sangoma does it or at-least did 4 years ago. Lots of ways to accomplish it and others have figure it out on there own without much work.
There is a limited right in the EU to reverse engineer, in order to interface to a product, and which, I believe, overrides any contract terms. (It doesn’t extend to publishing details of what you discover.)
The challenge for the OP is not so much getting them in/out of a Database but using within a Softphone.
As it stand there is no easy way of using a 3rd Party SMS provider with existing Softphone clients such as Sangoma Connect or Clearly Anywhere or any others that I’m aware of that wouldn’t require an element of development time being invested.
Using a softphone that supports SIP messaging makes development time minimal.
What I am trying to understand is how and why OP has both Sangoma Connect and Clearly Anywhere installed on his PBX. Why pay for, install, and support both?
First off, I bought the Clearly Anywhere license because it was cheap and easy to setup when trying to figure out how to setup the use of a softphone. And, if I remember correctly, it seemed to be a more user friendly.
Second, Sangoma Connect came out with an update and I went in search of what it looked like and offered. I found the two user license for it, set it up, and I like the way it looks.
So now I have two guys that rent office space in the same building I do. I set them up with extensions on my FreePBX setup and they lover it. One likes the look and feel of Clearly Anywhere. The other likes the look and feel of Sangoma Connect. Since they both work fine with each other, there’s no reason to drop one for the other if the user likes, and is comfortable with, a particular soft phone.
Now, I would like to get the ability to text using the work soft phones as well since everyone and their brother expects you to be able to send and receive text messages from your cell phone. But as of right now, it’s not worth the hassle of changing SIP providers to do it.
If it were an option, I’d rather buy a module that works with the SIP provider I prefer rather than transfer phone numbers and services to another SIP provider for one feature, when I’m perfectly happy with the SIP provider I already have setup and working with everything else I want it to do.
Thus, I am searching for a piece that allows what I want to make happen fit in with what I have and like.
Can we please not flag questions about federal compliance as “off-topic”? It is a fair question to ask since they brought up they are hosting other tenants on their PBX.