'Can I Borrow Your Phone To Check My SMS Messages?' - SMS-based answerback mailbox

There was a minor emergency (one Uncle tried BASE jumping without a parachute, he seems to be fine) so I'm a bit behind. Oddly enough, the network has been undependable for voice calls over the past 2 days - our wonderful TSTT in action again. SMS, at least, gets through even if you get the messages in a week. :-)

Thus, when I came across this Development Gateway Resource, I saw a lot of potential - and thus, I read up a bit more on SMS-based answerback mailbox (SAM). One number, multiple SMS recipients.

But you can do that with an Asterisk server too. In fact, that may be what they are using, the Open Source PBX.

It seems like it comes from the same base as Frontline SMS - but it's distinct in that a PIN number is used, as far as I can tell. You can read more about Frontline SMS here.

The general idea of both of these ideas is maximizing communication. It's odd that telecommunications providers haven't already nailed down these sorts of services globally, but... catering to poor people is not what they are famous for. Still, there are plenty of business scenarios where they could be used.

From Emergency SMS to business, these technologies are worth keeping an eye on.

There's a half formed idea in the back of my head on this... when it ripens, I'll see if it has seeds. But maybe someone else will think of it first. :-)