in theory would it be possible for a high volume sender to use only one phone number?
For example, would it be possible for a company like Amazon, who sends out a text when a package is delivered, to send all of their SMS' from only one phone number, or are there API limits?
Twilio evangelist here.
This is possible by using a short code. Sending high volumes of messages from a normal 10 digit (in the US) phone number, which are also known as long codes, will likely result in the carriers blacklisting that number.
With Twilio, the only limiting we enforce is rate limiting which means how many messages per second we send to the carriers. Your application can send messages to Twilio as fast as you want via the REST API.
When sending from long codes we rate limit at 1 message per second. For short codes the rate limit is 30 messages per second.
More details can be found here:
https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/twilio-basics/what-are-the-limits-on-outbound-calls-and-sms-messages-per-second
https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-my-twilio-sms-messages-be-blacklisted-as-spam
Hope that helps.
Related
I have had a couple of customers wondering if they can use their own phone numbers to send out SMS using Twilio.
I am wondering if this is possible?
What are the carrier charges in this case and do I need to verify this number before enabling this functionality for an individual user?
The number you want to send messages from (or to) needs to be controlled by Twilio. However, it is possible to port your number from your current provider over to Twilio and thus give Twilio control over that number. This is possible, at least in some countries.
This support article here describes how this can be done for US numbers.
When my friends text my Twilio bot, Twilio responds from another number which is not even Twilio's and is named "SMSInfo". I expect the bot to respond from the same number. I assure you that I haven't set any logic there that a response should come from another number. Also, note that "SMSInfo" is a number which often sends them verification codes for Fiverr or other things.
I just submitted a ticket to Twilio support and a bot automatically suggested me few articles. One of them solved the issue.
Sender ID change may occur when you send messages from a Twilio number
that is not local to your recipients, for example using a US Twilio
number to send SMS to Polish mobile users. This is often done to
comply with local regulations, or to ensure the highest possible
delivery rate for your messages.
We want Caller ID to display our company name on outbound calls.
According to Twilio, numbers purchased from them cannot have Caller ID/CNAM added.
If we transfer numbers from another service that can add the numbers, will the CallerID/CNAM be maintained.
Should we Port the Number or have Twilio host the number? What is the difference?
Tried to purchase numbers on Twilio and have CNAM added.
Have purchased numbers from another vendor and they were able to add CallerID
Based on my experience recently migrating several numbers to Twilio:
If we transfer numbers from another service that can add the numbers, will the CallerID/CNAM be maintained?
Supposedly yes, mine did not. I had three Spectrum landlines, with working outbound caller ID. At some point after porting them to Twilio, the caller ID disappeared. What's worse is that some cellphones will try and "guess," and show random people's names instead of my business name (or at least, nothing).
What is the difference between porting and hosted numbers?
Hosted SMS provides a method for customers to use Twilio’s Programmable Messaging, Functions and Studio products to send and receive messages on voice-enabled numbers they already own as part of an established voice application.
(from https://www.twilio.com/docs/phone-numbers/hosted-numbers)
So porting is moving the number entirely to Twilio as the carrier for the number - voice, SMS, possibly fax (although Twilio's fax support is minimal). A hosted number would just enable SMS through Twilio for a non-Twilio landline number.
I have been looking for a way to get my numbers listed back in the CNAM database(s), today I tried a company called TrueCNAM (https://www.truecnam.com/) who will let you list up to five numbers for free. I went ahead and listed mine, I'll update my answer if I verify that it's working. Currently the CNAM lookup for my numbers is blank, so we'll see what happens.
Edit: I also tried verifying my number at https://listyourself.net, but I'm still not seeing the number in a couple searches I've done on it. It looks like the changes may take a while to propagate to the downstream third-party CNAM databases, based on this: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26461709-
I am building an app using Twilio to send out text messages and phone calls. It works great but I know there are limits to the amount of messages to send out per number in any given day. The app is going to be used to send out messages in the thousands at times, for instance to alert contacts about weather cancellations.
Since I am still developing, I do not want to send out real messages to thousands of real numbers a bunch of times while I test and configure my code.
Is there any phone apis, lists, etc. of dummy numbers that can be used as my example contacts that will at least return some form of TRUE that the number exists and received my call/message? Or return something else if I hit a use limit because of the number of messages I am sending.
I think I could get everything setup with a list of 1000 numbers since I can plan out every 250-500 calls, do this or that.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
There are no lists like that that I know of.
You do have a set of test credentials that you can use to send messages to a few "magic" numbers that will behave as if the message was successful (or failed for some reason). However there's only one success message here.
The thing about the limits of 200-250 messages per number per day is that they aren't hard limits. They are just around the level that carriers will start to consider blocking your messages. At that point you will likely still get a positive response from the Twilio API as a message is queued to be sent, but it may or may not fail at delivery time.
I recommend you look into Twilio's messaging services, they allow you to create a number pool that messages are sent from. If you are sending a number of the same messages at the same time, you can also check out Twilio Notify for sending notifications. I recently wrote up a blog post on how to set up a messaging service, number pool and Notify for bulk SMS.
Let me know if that helps at all.
We are a mobile app that uses Twilio for phone number verification.
And experiencing a small percentage of our user base getting their SMS very slow (over 2 mins).
Right now we have ~100 Twilio phone numbers which we use in a round robin chain format (so we don't hit any API limits).
Does the area code of the Twilio phone number that sends the SMS affect delivery speed? If so, we can buy a phone number in each area code and sent user's their verification SMS from a Twilio number in the exact same area code.
Here is an example of a delivery that took several minutes:
Twilio developer evangelist here.
The area code of a Twilio number should not affect the delivery speed at all. If you are concerned about this then I recommend you get in touch with Twilio support and send them some of the message SIDs you're worried about. They can track down why there might be delays with the carriers.
Just as a note, you don't need to do the round robin yourself. Take a look at Twilio's Copilot. It allows for geomatching (on an international basis) and also gives you sticky sender so that users will always receive messages from the same number.