Twilio - how do they send/receive SMS

Question

I'm interested to find out how twilio's SMS sending/receiving feature works, on long codes, or local numbers

Outside of the states, mobile originated SMS terminated on a long number is very common, however, inside the US I had thought that the MMA required termination on approved shortcodes?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

I can't say how Twilio does it, but we've been doing it for well over a year (http://tropo.com/) and I can explain how we do it.

We work with a number of SMS aggregators to actually deliver the messages. Our numbers are enabled for SMS in much the same way your mobile phone is. When you send a text message to a number, the carrier looks up how to deliver it, drops it on one of our aggregators who in turn deliver it to one of our datacenters. Shortcodes work much the same way with us.

Essentially, the mobile carriers see us as just another mobile carrier.

Answer 2

MMA does not have any legal or regulatory authority to require termination on approved short codes.

MMA simply writes best practices that incorporate carrier rules for short code programs.