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Is there any standard way to send a custom binary SMS supported by Android OS (4.2.2) or through free but third-party support? I mean - could I somewhere enter, for example:

0x23 0xAB 0x12 0x56 0xFF

and send it as a binary SMS, not a text SMS? I am developing an app which receives binary messages and I would like to test it.

I could write my own app, of course, but I would prefer using some existing and reliable way.

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  • Hi dear Vojta, Did you had any success with SMS Server? I can send text messages successfully, but for binary messages I receive nothing! Does they need any special header or footer in binary mode? For example I couldn't send 30303030 in binary mode instead of 0000 in text mode. Any suggestion? And moreover, which port shall I use? Oct 10, 2016 at 7:27
  • @Abraham Hi, yes, SMS Server worked perfectly as far as I remember, even for binary messages. You have to write a special app for receiving them, because the standard Android SMS client receives text messages only. The port is up to you; it must be the same port your Android app listens to.
    – vojta
    Oct 10, 2016 at 8:28
  • Thank you dear Vojta. Android SMS client receives text messages only. So, the configuration messages (I think they called CP Messages) that can carry GPRS settings, MMS setting and so on, are some type of text messages? (Because I didn't installed any special application on my handset to listen a specific port, but it's capable of receiving these kind of messages). Oct 10, 2016 at 11:23
  • Anyway, do you have any idea, how I can generate these CP Messages? Am I need to OTA keys for them or they are just like ordinary messages but with a specific format only? Oct 10, 2016 at 11:24
  • @Abraham Sorry, I have no experience with CP messages. By "Android client" I meant the default Android SMS app, which cannot process binary messages (at least as far as I know).
    – vojta
    Oct 11, 2016 at 12:06

2 Answers 2

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I don't know if this works, but there's an app called SMS Server with the following description:

Send binary sms messages on specifics ports. Indicated to test J2ME sms applications that receive messages on specifics ports. This application does not send free SMS.

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Intriguing question.

I'm not sure cell carriers support binary SMS. Have you considered encoding your data as base64 string and sending it?

There will be length limits on the message. I heard that you can include UTF text in the metadata of a png image sent via MMS, several megabytes worth.

Another idea I had is to encode data within the MMS image, each pixel = 256^3 bits or 16,777,216 combinations, a.k.a. 3 bytes per pixel.

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