Short Message Peer-to-Peer

The Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) in the telecommunications industry is an open, industry standard protocol designed to provide a flexible data communication interface for the transfer of short message data between External Short Messaging Entities (ESME), Routing Entities (RE) and Message Centres.

SMPP is often used to allow third parties (e.g. value-added service providers like news organizations) to submit messages, often in bulk, but it may be used for SMS peering as well. SMPP is able to carry short messages including EMS, Voice Mail notifications, Cell Broadcasts, WAP messages including WAP Push messages (used to deliver MMS notifications), USSD messages and others. Because of its versatility and support for non-GSM SMS protocols, like UMTS, IS-95 (CDMA), CDMA2000, ANSI-136 (TDMA) and iDEN, the SMPP is the most commonly used protocol for short message exchange outside SS7 networks.

History

SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) was originally designed by Aldiscon, a small Irish company that was later acquired by Logica (now split off and known as Acision). The protocol was originally created by a developer, Ian J Chambers, to test functionality of the SMSC without using SS7 test equipment to submit messages. In 1999, Logica formally handed over SMPP to the SMPP Developers Forum, later renamed as The SMS Forum and now disbanded. The SMPP protocol specifications are still available through the website which also carries a notice stating that it will be taken down at the end of 2007. As part of the original handover terms, SMPP ownership has now returned to Acision due to the disbanding of the SMS forum.