Kannel is an open source SMS and WAP gateway. It is developed on Linux using C but should be able to run on Unix like systems. For Windows, you will need the Cygwin to compile it.

For SMS services,

• Work as both Pull and Push gateway
• Can handle 7-bit, 8-bit and Unicode data
• Delivery reports
• Can handle hundreds of messages per second in average workstation
• Can be used to send operator logos, ringing tones, OTA configurations, WAP SI messages etc. but usually the message must be created by hand
• Supports following SMS center protocols: CIMD 1.3, CIMD 2.0, SMPP 3.4, UCP/EMI 4.0. Also: SEMA SMS2000 OIS protocol for SMS centers over Radiopad and X.25.
• Can use GMS phones and GSM modems as pseudo SMS center
• Can connect various HTTP based content gateways
• Can work as aggregator

For WAP services

• WSP: connection oriented and connectionless modes.
• WML compiler from text to binary form. Supports a number of character sets.
• WMLScript compiler: Converts textual WMLScript source code to a byte-code format.
• WTP: class 0, 1, and 2. Error handling is not very much tested, though.
• WDP: Supports only UDP bearer (GSM data and GPRS), no SMS bearer support yet.
• WAP push

Mbuni is a fully-fledged Free/Open Source Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) gateway. It includes both core network MMS switching (i.e. MMSC) capabilities as well as messaging gateway (i.e. MMSC infrastructure integration) features, and is suitable for operators and MMS VAS providers.

Mbuni implements all major MMS interfaces, including phone-to-phone (so-called MM1 interface), phone-to-email (MM3), inter-MMSC (MM4) and MMS VAS (MM7).

• MM1: MMS User Agent - for handsets
• MM3: External Servers - from/to email
• MM4: Interworking of different MMS gateways
• MM6: MMS user database
• MM7: MMS VAS applications
• MM8: Billing and CDR generation.

MM7 is the reference point between Value Added Service Provider (VASP) and Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC). By using the MM7 interface, third party content providers can send/receive multimedia messages between their applications and MMS-enabled mobile phones.

MM7 is a vendor-independent protocol specified by 3GPP and it is based on the concept of Web Services. The protocol uses HTTP for communication and utilizes SOAP/MIME/XML message format. Today virtually all MMSCs implement the MM7 interface. With MM7 protocol, VASP can perform the following functions:

• Send/Receive MMS messages
• Receive delivery and read reports
• Replace/Cancel an earlier MMS message submission (Optional)

All the telephone numbers we dial follow certain format known as E.164 addressing format – a combination of digits that comprise the country code, area code and telephone number. This format is defined by ITU (International Telecommunication Union), which is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio spectrum and telecommunications standards. All of the countries around the world follow this format to dial a telephone number.

Different countries (or operators) have different international direct dialing (IDD) access code; typically it is a ‘0’ or ‘00’ or ‘00x’ (e.g. 001). This IDD access code must be dialed out before you dial the fully specified phone number in E.164 format. Instead of remembering different IDD access code in different countries, there is a standard way to dial this on our mobile phone by using the ‘+’ sign. Example: Dialing +60123344556 is as good as dialing 0060123344556 (when you are oversea). Dialing +60123344556 while you are not overseas will also work as it is as good as you dial 0123344556.

This is definitely handier than storing the phone number in local dial format, such as 03032233445 or 0123344556 (I notice most people do that). Instead, store the phone number in the standard international format such as +6032233445 or +60123344556 in your address book, you will find that you can dial the same number anywhere from your address book in your mobile phone without the hassle of keying number again with some special IDD access code in front.

Telco is one area that I am always interested in, as most of my projects are telco related. It is interested to see a open source project like Mobicents.

According to JBoss, Mobicents is a highly scalable event-driven application server with a robust component model and fault tolerant execution environment. Mobicents is the first and only Open Source Platform certified for JSLEE compliance. It complements J2EE to enable convergence of voice, video, instant messaging and data in next generation intelligent applications.

In the scope of telecom Next Generation Intelligent Networks (NGIN), Mobicents fits in as a high-performance core engine for Service Delivery Platforms (SDP) and IP Multimedia SubSystems (IMS).

Mobicents enables the composition of Service Building Blocks (SBB) such as call control, billing, user provisioning, administration, and presence sensitive features. The JAIN SLEE specification allows popular protocol stacks such as SIP to be plugged in as resource adapters. The SLEE service building blocks - SBBs have many similarities to EJBs. The extensible standard architecture naturally accomodates integration points with enterprise applications such as Web, CRM or SOA end points.

It would be interesting if someone can share some project implementation experience using Mobicents, its performance benchmark and also the pros and cons of it.

I will give it a try once I have the time !