'Geo tagged' SMS?

Question

Is there any kind of standard/widely used SMS format for Android/IPhone/Windows mobile/Symbian that enables to send/recieve GPS coordinates ('geo tagged SMS')?

E.g. Garmin has peer point SMS format, that enables to send/recieve POIs or just simple points. Garmin mobiles are able parse this format and geographic part of the SMS behaves as a link, so by clicking it it can be shown on map or save to user's POIs etc.

I tried to find a similar SMS format for other mobile operating systems (or a general one...), but I have not found yet. Do you have any suggestions?

If so, is there any library that can be used to construct this kind of SMSs in .net environment?

I am developing a GIS app under .net that can be connected to a GSM modem. My plan is to implement a feature to send POI points to mobiles from my app.

Answer 1

Nope I'm afraid not.

An SMS is just that, a simple message, unlike MMS or voice it carries no state information, no meta data the most it has is a user defined header (For binary messages) and various protocol data unit elements that describe things like the address of the SMS central receiving server and the message length, type and char set.

If you want to do location aware stuff using SMS, then you'll

• a) need to have software running on the target device, that can interrogate a built in GPS or other location aware device.

• b) can respond to an inbound SMS asking it to send an SMS back with said location information in.

unless you have a web based SMS service then this is going to get very expensive very fast as most operators will charge you (at least here in the UK anyway) 0.14p per single SMS text off a standard consumer sim card, where as many bulk operators (I use Cardboard fish) will only charge you around 0.05p per SMS.

To give you an idea of the difference that's 7 SMS messages in every UK £1 on a consumer account and 20 in every UK £1 on a bulk account.