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The development of the Short Messaging Service (SMS) application for the
school usage

Article · June 2010

DOI: 10.1109/ITSIM.2010.5561647

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The Development of the Short Messaging Service (SMS)
Application for the School Usage
Salman Firdaus bin Haji Sidek
Faculty of Information and Communication Technology
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris
Tg. Malim, Malaysia
salmanfirdaus@ftmk.upsi.edu.my
Abstract—This research has outlined 2 objectives: to
develop a personal Short Messaging Service (SMS) server that
is easy to manage by school IT teacher and to develop an SMS
application system which is cost effective and does not tied up to
the SMS Gateway Service Provider. The Rational Unified
Process (RUP) methodology is implemented in this research
where the researcher could iteratively do the system
development during each phase. The literature review shows
most of the Content Delivery SMS services used by people
nowadays are rely on the commercial system developer and the
SMS Gateway Provider which provides the expensive 5 digits
unique number. But the SMS application system developed
through this research only need minimum development and
maintenance cost and suitable to be used in the school
environment. The product of this research is the SMS
application system that can avoid the reliance of the Content
Delivery SMS application of the student examination result to
the SMS Gateway Provider and the commercial SMS
application developer. This system can be managed totally by
school staff via selected telco without involving the third party
as a SMS Gateway Provider as well as the commercial SMS
application developer. This system also can be expanded to be
another SMS application that is suitable to be implemented in
school only by creating tables in the database that has been
provided and develop some simple user interface.
Index Terms - Content Provider, Service Provider, telco, SMS
Gateway Provider, Content Delivery SMS
I. INTRODUCTION
Short Messaging Service or generally known as SMS is a
basic protocol to send and receive message in a form of text
via hand phone, PDA, Blackberry and so on. The early
specification for SMS has been built on 1985 as stated in [1].
However, it becomes popular a decade after. During the
early stage, the SMS usage had faced up lots of constraints
caused by the geographical factors and the capability of the
technology during that time. However it becomes more
sophisticated nowadays when the technology is more up-to-
date via the international roaming and upgraded ICT features
such as internet, Bluetooth, WAP, GPRS, MMS and so forth.
In our daily lives, the popularity of SMS is not only
involved the submission of general and personal SMS but
also involved the submission and acceptance of the Services
and Content Delivery SMS such as mySMS-Gerbang, traffic
complaint SMS, SMS rakan-cop, SMS JPJ until to the
service where users can check their vehicle summons
978-1-4244-6716-7/10/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE.
through SMS. There are also SMS applications which
involved banking industry, social activities, ringing tones
downloading, games, quizzes, puzzles, e-voting, information
services such as horoscope and prayer time and so on which
are possible to prioritize the business agendas and the
commercial needs of certain parties for their own profit.
According to the research conducted by Suruhanjaya
Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia (MCMC), each of the
hand phone users in Malaysia will send four SMSs at
random per day. This number contributes to the total of 84
million SMS per day if times with 21 million of hand phone
subscribers available in Malaysia until the quarter of 2006 as
recorded by MCMC in [2].
The tremendous number of users and their attitude which
are never concern about the charge of the SMS usage which
the cost is between RM0.10 and RM0.30 per SMS for
personal SMS and from RM0.50 to RM3.00 for Content
Delivery SMS has caused the manipulation of certain parties
to get the huge profit. Sadly, this manipulation also gives
negative impact to the public users such as parents who are
very concern about their children’s education. In the school
environment, the SMS application known as SMS Sekolah
which maintain by the third party provides the student’s
attendance service, student’s discipline report, examination
result and others. However, if parents want to use the
service, they have to pay fees as much as RM3.00 to RM6.00
per month according to the number of their children in the
related schools. If they are not willing to subscribe, they still
can use the SMS application with minimum rate at RM0.30
per SMS as stated in [3].
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
As stated in [4], Fig.1 depicts the basic architecture of the
SMS sending and receiving process. Based on the figure, the
SMS sent via hand phone will be forwarded to the telco
through the SMS Centre (SMSC) number which is
embedded in the simcard and the number is depend on the
service provider such as +60120000015 for Malaysia’s
Maxis or +60193900000 Malaysia’s Celcom. When User 1
sends SMS to User 2, the hand phone will send that SMS to
SMSC at first and SMSC will keep that message and routes
the message to User 2’s hand phone if his hand phone has
signal coverage. If not, SMSC will keep the SMS until some
duration before the message is destroyed. The SMSC is also
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 User 1 SMSC User 2
Figure 1. The basic architecture of SMS submission and acceptance User 1 Telco SMS Gateway Content
Provider Provider
responsible to determine the charge for each SMS sent via Figure 3. The architecture of the Content Delivery SMS
their network. The extra cost will be charged if the
submission and acceptance of the SMS involved two
and so forth. The retrieved information will be forwarded
different telcos because the process needs a component
back to the SMS Gateway Provider before it will be send to
known as SMS Gateway Provider. This component is
User 1. This process is depicted in Fig.3 above.
needed because each telco has it own SMS protocol so the
Normally, the above architecture will charge the usage of
usage of this component has also affects the SMS service
the SMS service through reverse billing method and the rate
charge. The related process is depicted in Fig.2.
is up to the company which offers the service. The rate also
includes the service of telco, SMS Gateway Provider and
Content Provider as well. This is the factor why users have to
pay more if they used the Content Delivery SMS services as
compare to the normal personal SMS services. Therefore the
purpose of this research is to reduce the Content Delivery
SMS services cost as minimum as it could with no concern
on the profitable issues.
Figure 2. The submission and acceptance of SMS between two SMSCs III. METHODOLOGY
through SMS Gateway Provider.
For this research, the Rational Unified Process (RUP)
approach has been selected to be implemented for the whole
Apart from that, there is also SMS in a form of Content project development as depicted in Fig.4.
Delivery as depicted in Fig. 3 in the next column. The idea of
e-voting SMS, games SMS, social activities SMS, ringtone
downloading SMS et cetera were generated from here. The
architecture of the SMS submission and acceptance which
involved content delivery service basically comprises of the
Service Provider, for example Maxis, Celcom and DiGi; the
SMS Gateway Provider which acts as a connector between
Content Provider and telco where each of the SMS Gateway
Provider has it own SMS server with special ID in a form of
the unique five digits code such as 32728 (DAPAT) and
32020 (SMS Sekolah) and these servers have direct contact
with telcos; and also the Content Provider which provides
content that needed by the user such as ring tone, prayer
time, horoscope information and so on. For the purpose of
this research, the teacher in school is tend to be a Content
Provider and they will provide the information related to the
student’s examination results.
The process of the Content Delivery SMS submission Figure 4. The Rational Unified Process (RUP) phases
starts when User 1 send SMS which contain the request code
such as DLOAD<song_title> and QUIZ<answer> to the
SMSC through the unique five digits code such as DAPAT Inception
which is owned by Dapat Vista Sdn.Bhd. The SMSC will During this phase, the research needs will be defined and the
routes the SMS to the SMS Gateway Provider based on the consensus either this research will be continued or not will
unique five digits code. Next, the SMS Gateway Provider be determined. For this research, the objectives that have
will determine the Content Provider based on the request been outlined are to develop an SMS application that can
code. Next, the Content Provider will retrieves the deliver the school information to the students and also could
information needed based on the request code together with be managed by the school teacher as a Content Provider
the input given by the user such as <song_title>, <answer> without involving the third party such as SMS Gateway

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Provider and the application system developer. Besides, the
system also can offer the low cost of SMS service because
the architecture doesn’t involved the SMS Gateway
Provider and application system developer. The good thing
is the content of the system can be provided, managed and
administered by the school teacher itself. The scope of this
research is to deliver the examination result to the student
via hand phone, doesn’t need outsourcer services and can be
managed only by the school teacher, provides 2-ways
service based on IC number and suitable to be used by the
small amount of users such as in school. The hardware and
software specifications are Microsoft Access as database
software, PHP as programming language, MySQL as query
language, Apache as server, a laptop and a GSM modem.
Elaboration
At this level, the researcher will look depth into the
relationship between the existed systems with the system
that will be developed through this research. The sources for
the hardware and software will be determined in order to
avoid any constraints regarding to the source acquisition.
For this research, this is the most crucial part because the
hardware specification is hard to be found in the market.
The wrong decision making when purchasing the hardware
will increased the development cost. However, the problem
could be overcome through an efficient SMS application
architecture.
Construction
At the end of this phase, the system is fully developed.
Some test will be conducted in order to ensure the
objectives of this research are achieved.
Transition
The final changes are based on the errors that have been
detected during the test. During this phase, any fine-tuning
will be done.
IV. RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
To reduce the cost of the Content Delivery SMS usage,
the first SMS architecture has assigned teacher at school or
outsourcer as a Content Provider. If the Content Provider is
outsourcer, school has to pay the charge for telco and they
also have to buy the customized application system from the
third party as well as outsourcer. It means school has to pay
to the third party for the application system customization
charge and the management charge. At the same time, school
also needs to pay some cost to the SMS Gateway Provider
including the setup fees, annual fees and the new request
code activated charge. According to [4], the cumulative
charges can be reached until 10K RM per year.
However, the cost could be reduced by implementing the
sharing of unique code with other Content Providers. The
school can share the rent fees of the server. However, this
kind of SMS architecture promotes trafficking while many
Content Providers used the same server which is managed by
the SMS Gateway Provider. Both SMS architecture’s
weakness and constraints could be improved if the school
willing to develop its personal SMS server. However as in
[4], the cost will be increased drastically until it can be
reached up to RM100K because the school has to setup their
own SMS infrastructure including the hardware, software
and the application system as well. But the school can
request their own unique code from telco and they can be as
a Content Provider and SMS Gateway Provider as well. On
the same time, the school also can be the SMS Gateway
Provider for any parties who want to subscribe the server
from school in order to generate some income. However, the
cost of this kind of SMS architecture is very high while the
school has to pay lots to request the license from the MCMC;
they also have to set up their own SMS infrastructure
including the hardware, software and the application system.
The best way to overcome this matter is by developing
the Content Delivery SMS application system through the
architecture of the normal personal SMS service as showed
in Fig.1 earlier. This type of SMS architecture will reduced
the Content Delivery SMS cost between RM0.07 to RM0.30
per student and RM35.00 to RM75.00 for 500 students for
each examination results released. The proposed architecture
is depicted in Fig.5.
User 1 SMSC Desktop +
GSM Modem
Figure 5. The proposed Content Delivery SMS architecture
According to Fig.5, User 1 is a student or their parent.
The Service Provider is Maxis so that the SMS application
system that has been developed is using Maxis’s SMSC. The
charge of each SMS is determined by Maxis where the cost
is RM0.07 for SMS from Maxis to Maxis and RM0.15 for
SMS from Maxis to other telco. A laptop will act as a
localhost server. The localhost will keep the Microsoft
Access database which contains the examination result table,
the received SMS table, and the submitted SMS table for the
log purposes. It also equipped with Apache server which has
been downloaded from internet without any cost. The SMS
architecture as shown in Fig.5 has successfully reduced the
reliance of the Content Delivery SMS to the SMS Gateway
Provider. Besides, the SMS application system also could be
developed by the school itself using PHP scripting language
that is very dynamic and easy to maintain and also the SQL
database query language which is easy to code. The SMS
server only involved a laptop which act as a localhost server
and all students’ result is kept in the Microsoft Access
database inside the localhost.
The task that should be taken by teacher is they are only
have to key-in the examination result into the database via
the simple interface which has been developed using PHP. If
the teacher has skill to use Microsoft Excell, he or she only
need to copy & paste the examination results data into the
Microsoft Access database through the tables provided. If the
school wants to develop another application, they only have
to develop a new table and short script to process the data
inside the table. The process of the proposed Content
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Delivery SMS submission and acceptance architecture is
depicted in Fig.6 and 7 at the end of this article.
V. SUMMARY
The product of this research can reduced the burden of
cost facing by schools and users. The school management 1. User sends SMS with
doesn’t need to rely on the outsourcer as an SMS Gateway IC number follows
Provider or as the application system developer. Normally, EXAM<ic_no> format
the company which running the outsource services will face
up the internal problem with the school because the school
purposes is very crucial to be considered while developing
the SMS application system. Besides, outsourcing also will 2. Maxis routes the
reduce the trustworthy to the information as well as the SMS to localhost
school administration. At the same time, the school will lost
their right in order to determine the objectives of the
implemented system because the system is managed by the
third party. It means any improvement to the system need a
longer time because it has to be discussed internally before it
can be forwarded to the outsourcer. The development cost
and the subscribing cost also should be considered by the
4. System sends the
school. However if the school develop its own application 3. SMS will be inserted examination result
system and managing its own SMS service infrastructure, the into database in order based on the ic_no
cost of the SMS could be reduced drastically because the to retrieve the requested by user.
charge of the SMS has direct connection to the SMS examination result. **error message if
application’s architecture. Lastly, it is believed that the
the record doesn’t
product outcomes from this research can promote the SMS
exist.
technology in any school environment.

1. User sends SMS

contains request code
EXAM to +60173585920

System Application User Interface

2. Maxis routes the
SMS to localhost

3. SMS will be 4. System sends Welcome

inserted into database Message and ask user to Teacher/ContentProvider
for initialization. key-in their IC number

Figure 7. Content Delivery SMS Architecture : Path 2

REFERENCES
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Figure 6. Content Delivery SMS Architecture : Path 1 The Creation of Personal Global Text Messaging, West
Sussex, UK:Wiley-Blackwell:2010.

1385
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