Understanding the Difference between SMPP Server and SMPP Client
There are a large number of products sold throughout the internet. Some products are sold on their names that do not even match their functionality. One such victim is an SMPP Server. The confusion here is that there are many providers that actually deal in the sale of SMPP Client in the name of SMPP server.
Therefore, it is necessary for people to be clearly aware of the difference between an SMPP client and a server. This is nothing but a gimmick of terminology that is used by different marketing gurus. However, prior to understanding the different, it is necessary for you to know what is an SMPP server altogether.
What is the SMPP Protocol?
The SMPP protocol comes as a blessing for the SMS era and the whole credit for this goes to SMPP forum or Open Source for keeping this protocol open and user-friendly. There are many open-minded engineers and developers who have actually come up with native libraries that are based on IP/TCP protocol along with socket connections or port programming for connecting an SMPP server.
The libraries developed by the professionals help them in developing an SMPP client and that too without digging into the details of TCP/IP protocol and portal programming. There exist several SMM server and client implementations. But it is to be noted that the compliance with SMPP specifications tends to be completely varied. Majority of the providers in India offer intelligent SMPP solutions designed to easily interact with varied operator level SMPP servers or clients.
Understanding the content of these variations is very important. Let us have a look below:
Differences between SMPP 3.3 and SMPP 3.4
Here, we will be having a look at the specification differences between SMPP 3.3 and SMPP 3.4
The very first thing that should be noted about SMPP 3.3 is that it is basically a proprietary modus operandi that has evolved into SMPP 3.4 set of rules.
SMPP 3.3 connections are made either for sending bind transmitter messages or for receiving bind recover messages. This means that for sending and receiving messages, there are two connections required. Bind transceiver messaging has been introduced in SMPP 3.4. This helps the users in sending and receiving SMS on the same connection.
SMPP 3.3 supports only a fixed number of parameters with every operation while SMPP 3.4 supports optional parameters as well. These parameters might be optionally available in SMPP 3.4 operations.
The message ID’s in SMPP 3.3 are numeric. They can even be presented in decimal forms and in hexadecimal forms. But this is not the case with SMPP 3.4 where the messages ids tend to be alphanumeric.
One thing that the users should always be clear about is that their SMPP Server Price will depend on the version that they are choosing. Obviously, version SMPP 3.4 will be more expensive in comparison to version SMPP 3.3.
Conclusion
SMPP server is nothing but a whole SMSC or Short Message Service Center that has the potential of handling several SMPP Client. Along with this, it also has the ability of managing sessions; taking care of billing and relaying thousands of message traffic to the interconnected short message service centers. Perhaps, there are a large number of telecommunications operators that outsource their short message service centers from third parties owing to their consistency and complexities.