Recorded voice - sending it to many cell phones

[Gayatri]

Hi,
We have been using frontline for bulk messages and is very useful and easy.

But we have a new requirement now - Our Project Manager has to call and talk to people in remote villages in local language, passing on the same message to over 15-20 people every month or so, sms is not easy since each call is about 10 mts long. She wanted a techie solution for this - As a via media solution I suggested recording her voice message and sending it to a list of cell phones with a PC (VOIP). They will hear the cell phone 'ring' and hear a human voice, only it will be recorded.

Are you planning to include this feature in frontline sms ? Any help/guidance will be much appreciated.

[kiwanja]

Hi Gayatri

Glad to hear you're finding FrontlineSMS useful.

As for voice, we have no plans to do this, but that's not to say it won't happen. The source code is obviously available so if you have the resources maybe you could add it, or if you know other developers maybe they could? There are details on the source location, and other information, on an "Architecture" blog post on the forum here.

Ken

[Claudio Midolo]

Hi Gayatri, I'm not sure Frontline can do this but a fellow graduate student from my university just launched a service called Pigeon

http://www.callpigeon.com/

a person calls the service, records an audio message which will be then accessible to the people interested in it. They will call a number and hear the message.

as of right now it is limited to one minute but I suggest to talk to Drew Cogbill, the founder of the project as these technical limitation can be surpassed.

here's his email:
[e-mail]

[Gayatri]

Thanks Ken and Claudio.

I will look into the code, to understand how to send recorded messages. It will be a very useful feature in my opinion.

I checked Pigeon - but I think it will still be expensive to call up a 713-number, isn't it ? There are conference call softwares and other such websites but unfortunately they mostly are atleast 10c a minute calls to mobile phones in India, which is very expensive for NGOs and villagers.

But I will see if we can write some code!

[kiwanja]

Hi Gayatri

I'm sure there are other solutions out there which might meet your needs, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. If you do go ahead and write something, hopefully you can share it with the wider community? The addition of a "Voice" tab on FrontlineSMS could be hugely valuable.

Best of luck, and let us all know how you get on!

Ken

[Gayatri]

Thanks Ken ;-)
Will keep you posted on the code!

[Tamilselvan]

Hi Gayatri,
I want know that if Frontline SMS possible to be integrated into a Web Application like HTML or PHP for sending SMS.

[Gayatri]

Hi Tamilselvan,
I dont know the answer - maybe Ken/Alex might answer the qn.

That said, we tested the xml commands feature of the frontline, which can wait for response from a web application kicked off by a Keyword, and read xml code sent back by web php script to send sms automatically.

If this is too much jargon, please see External Commands discussion topic.

thanks
Gayatri

[Deep]

Hi Gayatri,

Do you have any suggestion for using the external command option for importing large number of Keywords and the automatic responses into the F SMS.

Also were you suiccessful in using the external web appliucation along with F SMS?

Thanks,
Deep.

[Gayatri]

I dont know how to 'import' keywords into Frontline. The way we have done it is one at a time, through the menu commands. maybe ken, alex or kadu can comment on it.

Yep we were successful in using external web application with Frontline. It works beautifully - you can pass arguments to the web application not just kick off a web app. you can also get a response from the web app, make frontline sms read the response from web app if it is xml code, and send sms based on that.

[Deep]

Hi Gayatri,

Can I kow more about your web application. Is there any online portal availabe for me to view. Or I can give you a call too to know more.

It seems like I need to have a mix of F SMS & web aplication (API) for the project I am trying.

Let me know more.

Thanks,
Deep.

[Alex Anderson]

Hi Gayatri,

There is a project called Freedom Fone which you might also find useful, although I'm not sure of the status of the project, and their website (www.freedomfone.org) is currently down.

Alex