[OT] Bulk SMS rates

["White, Peter" <peter.white@xxxxxxx>]

Sorry for the OT post, but I've spent the last hour trying to talk to
someone who knows what they're talking about at our telecoms provider
(Genesis) and failed.

Basically, we're currently sending about 2000 messages per week via 2 SIMs
in a couple of Wavecom GSM modems attached to a W2K server.  These SIMs are
just bog-standard Vodafone numbers, which means we're paying 12p a shot, or
24p for the 20% that go overseas.

Without changing any of the technology, does anyone know if 'specialist'
contracts that just cover SMS?  I know there are various add-on packs for
Orange & O2, but I just wondered whether there's anything simpler that
will
basically just reduce out SMS costs.

If anyone has a more radical idea then I'd be glad to hear it off list, on
the basis that any improved solution would need to be free, and recoup
whatever costs there are via the message charge.  The eventual volume is
anything between 5-8k per week, plus about 3k inbound messages, and of
those, about 25% could be from overseas (though we'll probably host a
server
in each country and just VPN into it to grab the files.

Thanks

Pete


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