If you are planning to develop a webapp that sends sms then you willl have to get connectivity from a bulk sms providor. They will provide you simple URLs you can use to send SMS. No big deal....

The sms gateway will provide you API in various platforms... You just need to make a post/get of your message, to_number etc to their api...

Check out clickatell.com

Do you need to receive SMS? If you need to receive SMS, you will need to host your own GSM device or modem so that people can send you SMS.

If not, you can just use internet SMS gateways like clickatell to do the work, and post to them by HTTP, XML or email. The cost is about 6-8 cents per SMS. There are cheaper services, but not always reliable. If you need to host your own GSM device, you can use software like http://www.visualtron.com or http://www.kannel.org (GPL Open Source). Alternatively, you may obtain a shortcode from your Telco - but these come with monthly subscription of maybe one or two hundreds.

Regards,
<sniped>

Hi amithasija,

You should check out this post over at me2mobile. We're starting a cookbook type series on how to create free sms sending websites.
http://www.me2mobile.com/blg_view.php?blog_id=25

Hope this helps

Ivo
<sniped>
Roll your own mobile services

Thanks for all of your sites, big help!

there is a plugin to do this. google for sms rails plugin you will find it.

To send sms using rails you will need to interface with a sms provider such as mx telecom for example.

The just connect to their REST interface and send the sms's

Hi,

I'm currently working on this. I see that Ruby has support for ASMX web services SNIP, and therefore shouldn't have a problem, once I get to grips with Soap4r.

See in 30 mins, I should have something posted on the blog, SNIP

Watch this space! ...

Dan.

Et Violá !

Source code for sending SMS from ruby:

SNIP