The Wireless Communications Transfer Protocol (WCTP) was designed to simplify the transmission of alphanumeric and binary messages from automated, server-based systems to and from 2-way messaging devices. WCTP is the most technically preferred method of connecting to an American Messaging network by third-party servers and software clients. This is because WCTP provides certain features, including the highest level of security, not presently supported by SNPP.
WCTP and XML
WCTP was developed based on widely accepted Internet protocols and standards including HTML and XML. You should be familiar with these standards before attempting to implement a WCTP connection to an American Messaging network. Furthermore, we have not implemented the entire suite of commands and controls associated with WCTP version 1.2 or later, so you should read this document carefully to ensure that your desired implementation is supported by our networks. Because WCTP uses XML as its communication language, WCTP operations must be formatted in accordance with the XML 1.0 specification. This requires that all operations be “well-formed” and “valid” according to the WCTP Data Type Definition (DTD file specified by American Messaging). The meaning of well formed and valid is described in the XML specifications (see http://www.w3.org/XML for more information on XML and well formed and valid operations).
Firewall and TCP/IP Ports
Additionally, since WCTP rides on HTML, you can connect to our network using port 80 through the Internet. Moreover, if you need a secure connection, you connect using SSL through port 443. Both of these ports are generally open through most enterprise firewalls, which should allow developers to implement a solution without changing corporate firewall settings.
Benefits Over SNPP
In comparison to other protocols such as SNPP, WCTP is more robust but more difficult to implement. Implementation of WCTP requires that your solution act as a WCTP client to our WCTP host. There are some standardized clients available that will communicate using the WCTP protocol. However, because of WCTP’s flexibility and rich feature set, custom applications can exploit its capabilities far beyond what an off-the-shelf application will provide. In addition to providing a secure connection to an American Messaging messaging network, using WCTP enables you to obtain responses from 2-way messaging devices, provided that the original message was sent via WCTP. Note, your WCTP client is required to “poll” our WCTP host for any expected response(s). WCTP is the preferred connection method for time bound, full 2-way communications between our messaging devices and your servers.
Supported WCTP Operations
Our WCTP DTD file, which contains the definitions of our supported operations can be found at: http://wctp.myairmail.com/wctp-dtd-v1r1.dtd. See below for our messaging examples utilizing a WCTP connection, and visit http://www.wctp.org for the latest information on WCTP.
Example of a WCTP message being submitted to the server:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wctp-Operation SYSTEM "http://wctp.myairmail.com/wctp-dtd-v1r1.dtd">
<wctp-Operation wctpVersion="wctp-dtd-v1r1">
<wctp-SubmitClientMessage>
<wctp-SubmitClientHeader submitTimestamp="2003-11-14T04:30:53">
<wctp-ClientOriginator senderID="betauser" miscInfo="betapassword"/>
<wctp-ClientMessageControl notifyWhenDelivered="true" allowResponse="true"/>
<wctp-Recipient recipientID="2148169898"/>
</wctp-SubmitClientHeader>
<wctp-Payload>
<wctp-Alphanumeric>
This is a test
</wctp-Alphanumeric>
</wctp-Payload>
</wctp-SubmitClientMessage>
</wctp-Operation>
Example of the response after the submission:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE wctp-Operation SYSTEM "http://wctp.myairmail.com/wctp-dtd-v1r1.dtd">
<wctp-Operation wctpVersion="wctp-dtd-v1r1.dtd" wctpToken="x224">
<wctp-SubmitClientResponse>
<wctp-ClientSuccess successText="Message Accepted" successCode="200" trackingNumber="1784193744"/>
</wctp-SubmitClientResponse>
</wctp-Operation>