Fonoster: The open-source alternative to Twilio | Hacker News Reader

Fonoster: The open-source alternative to Twilio

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142 pointsthunderbong29 comments

I'm using twilio to forward text messages. At first glance I thought this could replace it but it doesn't look like it does sms.

Is anyone aware of a similar open source project for text messaging? And, would I use the same voip provider gateway?

How do you get around the fact they don't receive commercial short numbers? I need to get verification codes from my bank and so on for that to work.

You can email them to enable receiving short codes for a specific number. That doesn't mean it works with all banks or whatever (the sending company may not allow Twilio numbers), but it does work for some of them.

https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223181668-Can-T...

I did that and it didn't help. Thankfully most companies support "Voice call verification" which does work.

Have you ever had a company refuse to voice call verify a twilio number?

The issue with SMS, in my limited understanding, is commercial numbers tend to come through shortcodes and shortcodes have their own set of delivery rules. Nothing of the sort from voice calls. I haven't had any instances of voice calls not coming through.

10DLC will be the future anyways: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260800720410-W...

My (minimal) understanding of telecoms is the future is always a very long way away if you relying on complete rollout for usability.

Skimming that page, it also looks like possibly this is only replacing commercial long code users, not commercial short code users? But I didn't read carefully enough to be sure.

I had to give up getting short codes (or so I thought until I read the comments here).

Even though I actually worked for a telecom company in 1999 as my first programming job, the telecom stuff has always been mysterious.

Even with everything being voIP now it still feels mysterious.

So I still can’t wrap my head around what happens when you go from a Twilio api call to the cell tower and ultimately the handset.

Are these guys claiming that the software does all that?

In which case, how do I hook into the carriers and telecom infrastructure?

Would Verizon give me an IP to connect to? Which protocol?

I don't know if Verizon would fit the bill, but the keyword to look for is "voip provider" (or "voip service provider"). As for protocols, I would start there if I were you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP#Protocols

I am hardly an expert myself but these two resources helped me build a bit of intuition:

- The route of a text message: https://scottbot.net/the-route-of-a-text-message/

- Architecture of Asterisk - http://aosabook.org/en/asterisk.html

I spent a bit of my career dealing with aterisk, i still don't think i understand it..

You would need to sign up for a voip provider and use the credentials they give you. Your app talks to this software using the web api, and this software will talk to your voip provider using SIP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol

Twilio bundles both the web api and the voip provider into one product.

I'd love for something to be able to replace Google Voice for maybe $5 a month. Does anyone have any suggestions? Keep in mind that Google Voice offers "unlimited" SMS and MMS, and free calls anywhere in the US.

Mobile apps like Burner offer this ($4.99 unlimited)

https://support.burnerapp.com/article/38-plans-and-pricing

In the same space, but looking somehow more mature, and based on Freeswitch as its voice core: https://www.jambonz.org/ - it is available as a standalone project or a managed cloud (for small apps, a quick test, or prototyping).

My company is starting to use it. Dave is super helpful, and it handles SMS.

Can't seem to find SMS pricing for that service.

They don't do "pricing" - you need to add your own carrier for everything. That's the point.

Can confirm Dave is a wonderful person, and both jambonz (the CPaaS) and drachtio (the underlying voice middleware stack) are fantastic.

We use the commercially and would highly enourage those to do to github sponsor or contact Dave directly to support development.

In the past, Plivo claimed to be an open source Twilio with a superset of features.

How would this compare?

Founder and core maintainer here, I was surprised to see this post.

I like to address some of the questions.

1. I'm using twilio to forward text messages. At first glance I thought this could replace it but it doesn't look like it does sms - @xrd

You are correct.

Fonoster does not yet support SMS. However, SMS is within the project's scope and will be implemented later this year. Please see the roadmap here:

https://github.com/orgs/fonoster/projects/9

2. So I still can’t wrap my head around what happens when you go from a Twilio api call to the cell tower and ultimately the handset - @atonse

Some use-cases will require a VoIP Service Provider. Specifically, every time you send or receive a call from the telephone network (PSTN). Alternatively, you could use a SIP-to-GSM Gateway such as GoIP 8.

Fonoster will be particularly helpful when there is regional regulatory compliance or when a company wants to reduce reliance on traditional CPaaS Providers.

Note: A VoIP provider is not needed for internal calling (like an office setup) or browser calling.

3. Would Verizon give me an IP to connect to? Which protocol?

Most telephony providers have SIP interconnection of some sort but are usually for big customers or to communicate with lower-tier providers.

But as @bzxcvbn pointed out, you can find a local VoIP Provider relatively easily. I use a few for testing, like DIDLogic, CallCentric, and VoIP MS.

I'm glad there is work on open alternatives to twilio, but I want to either confirm some features are missing or find out where to learn more about them.

Is there any solution for:

* Conference calls

* Call queues

* Call recordings

We are missing conference calls. This and other features are around the corner.

But, I am curious about your use case.

See roadmap: https://github.com/orgs/fonoster/projects/9

I have a call center. We call consumers who signed up on our site, put them in a conference room, and then if they're interested we transfer their call over to a client who pays for the warm transfer. Additionally we receive incoming calls which we need to put into a hold queue and pull from.

Such an interesting concept to try to approach. I am in the process of open-sourcing my iMessage API (sendblue.co) - any advice?

Could probably swap out the SMS piece, at least partially, with Sendblue for now.

Not being sarcastic, but TIL that there is something else than SMS that Twilio does.

You write "The open-source alternative to Twilio" and for me (and I guess many other people) that would mean sending SMS.

Or, you can just use the Amazon Chime SDK to get all of this same capability and pay as you go. All the driving code is open source - full examples, tutorials and such on github at https://github.com/aws-samples/amazon-chime-sdk-pstn-audio-w....

That's just replacing one big third-party with another, isn't it? Twilio has lots of open source examples available, and is similarly pay-as-you-go.

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