Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) is a protocol that defines a method by which a pager

Pager

A pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call...

 can receive a message over the Internet. It is supported by most major paging providers, and serves as an alternative to the paging modems used by many telecommunications services. The protocol was most recently described in RFC 1861. It is a fairly simple protocol that may run over TCP/IP (using TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

 port 444) and send out a page using only a handful of well-documented commands.

Connecting & Using SNPP Servers

It is relatively easy to connect to a SNPP server only requiring a telnet client and the address of the SNPP server. The port 444 is standard for SNPP servers, and it is free to use from the sender's point of view. Maximum message length can be carrier-dependent. Once in the telnet console, a user can simply enter the commands to send a message to a pager connected to that network. For example, once connected to the network, you could then issue the PAGE command with the number of the device you would like to send the message to. After that issue the MESS command with the text of the message you wish to send following it. You can then issue the SEND command to send out the message to the pager and then QUIT, or send another message to a different device. The protocol also allows you to issue multiple PAGE commands, stacking them one after the other, per message effectively allowing you to send the same message to several devices on that network with one MESS and SEND command pair.

External links

• [ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1861.txt rfc-editor.org - RFC 1861]
• snpp.info