Building a WAP Push Test Environment

  • Article

For smart phone OEMs, it is generally difficult to test WAP Push and OMA OTA provisioning without having access to operator's testing facility. When operators or customers report issues related to SI (Service Indication) or SL (Service Loading) message handling, a local test environment to reproduce those issues will be a great help. For example, if an operator requires a specific handling of SL messages that the operating system does not support by default, we have to develop a customized SMS provider to enable it, and an environment for SL testing is needed for this task.

To build a small WAP Push test environment, we need to have SMS gateway software on the PC side that can send WAP Push as well as other SMS/MMS messages. For example, NowSMS is a pretty good SMS gateway tool that can allow you to send SMS text message, binary message, WAP Push, MMS, and OMA OTA settings to a phone, as long as you have either a GSM modem or a phone that can act as a GSM modem supporting SMS. Microsoft SMS Sender is another PC-side tool but it does not provide MMS and flash SMS capability. Hush SMS can be used to send SMS, Flash SMS, and SI/SL messages directly from the device.

My recommendation for building a WAP Push test environment is:

1. Purchase NowSMS and install on a desktop computer

2. Purchase  a GSM Modem, either a Sierra Wireless PC card or an external GSM model (Wavecom Fasttrack modem, for example).

3. Setup NowSMS with the GSM modem, and then use the web interface NowSMS provides to send WAP Push messages. 

Note: before setting up NowSMS with the GSM modem, make sure you first use HyperTerminal to verify the modem (with your SIM card) can actually send SMS messages. The following AT sequence is usually used to send a text SMS from the modem: 

ATE1V1
OK

AT+CSMS=0
+CSMS: 1,1,1
OK

AT+CSMS? (check if modem supports SMS)
+CSMS: 0,1,1,1
OK

AT+CSMS=?
+CSMS: (0-1)

OK
AT+CMGF=1 (to send text SMS)
OK

AT+CMGS="##########"
> hello (when modem returns ">", type your message and press Ctrl+Z)
+CMGS: 48
OK