SMS & Messaging Gateway

Part of the worlds-biggest-software-project initiative.

An AI-native, open-source SMS gateway with multi-provider routing, number management, and built-in compliance for global A2P messaging.

The SMS & Messaging Gateway aggregates connections to multiple carriers and routes messages through the optimal path based on cost, delivery speed, and reliability. It is intended for teams building SMS-dependent products — OTP delivery, appointment reminders, fraud alerts, and two-way conversations — who need a provider abstraction that hides carrier complexity while offering transparent routing quality, delivery receipts, and cross-market compliance tooling.

Why SMS & Messaging Gateway?

Incumbents like Twilio offer limited transparency on carrier relationships and routing decisions, with pricing that becomes opaque for complex multi-carrier scenarios.
Carrier-grade platforms such as Infobip deliver HLR intelligence and 800+ direct connections, but pricing models layer per-query lookup costs and SMPP configuration carries a steep learning curve.
No major gateway clearly exposes why a message took a specific route, making grey-route detection and DLR accuracy auditing impossible for customers to verify independently.
End-to-end regulatory compliance (10DLC in the US, DLT in India, GDPR in the EU) — including consent capture, record-keeping, and audit trails — remains largely manual across all incumbents.
No provider commits to latency SLAs per use case (e.g. OTP delivery 95th percentile under 2 seconds) or guarantees webhook delivery order and deduplication across retries.

Key Features

Unified Messaging API

REST API for sending and receiving SMS messages
Delivery receipt (DLR) handling with webhook delivery
Inbound message handling (SMS MO) with webhook delivery
Sender ID management with customizable from/sender field
Support for OTP, transactional, and promotional message types

Multi-Carrier Routing

Multi-provider failover with automatic carrier switching on failure
HLR (Home Location Register) lookup for number intelligence and Mobile Number Portability resolution
Batch SMS API for bulk delivery to multiple recipients in a single request
SMPP protocol support for enterprise telecom integration
Detailed DLR accuracy metrics distinguishing handset versus network receipts

Compliance & Number Management

10DLC campaign registration automation for US A2P traffic
DLT registration support for India, including the post-2025 message category suffix system
GDPR consent record tracking and opt-out handling
Number provisioning across long codes, short codes, toll-free numbers, and virtual mobile numbers
Geographic coverage in primary markets (US, EU, APAC)

Two-Way & Conversational Messaging

Inbound routing with webhook-based conversation handling
Webhook reliability with guaranteed delivery and deduplication
Preferred channel routing with fallback to WhatsApp, Viber, and other channels by geography
Custom routing rules for per-segment or per-user carrier selection
Offline message queueing for delivery on service restoration

Analytics & Observability

Basic delivery analytics covering sent, delivered, and failed counts
Granular carrier performance analytics and route transparency
Cost prediction and budgeting for multi-carrier failover scenarios
Transparent per-message pricing

AI-Native Advantage

AI models can replace rule-based carrier selection with predictions of delivery success per carrier and region, and can flag fake or unreliable DLRs before they distort analytics. ML-driven compliance inference auto-detects message category (transactional versus marketing) and applies the correct regional rules, while fraud detection identifies suspicious sender IDs, numbers, and content patterns. Latency prediction and congestion-window detection optimise sends for time-critical OTP delivery, and content moderation flags messages likely to trigger carrier filtering before they leave the queue.

Tech Stack & Deployment

The gateway is designed for both REST and SMPP protocol access, supporting modern API-first integrations alongside enterprise telecom infrastructure. Webhooks deliver delivery receipts and inbound messages. Deployment targets include self-hosted SMPP gateway servers (in line with TeleOSS-style enterprise deployments) and cloud-hosted multi-tenant operation. Carrier connectivity is established through direct relationships or SMPP aggregators, with a routing intelligence layer using HLR lookups and Mobile Number Portability data to determine the serving network before dispatch.

Market Context

The global SMS market is projected to reach USD 12.6 billion in 2026. Incumbent providers — Twilio, Infobip, Vonage (Ericsson), Sinch, Prelude, and AWS SNS — are all proprietary commercial services with no open-source component. Primary buyers are engineering teams at product companies needing OTP, transactional, and conversational messaging, plus enterprise telecom integrators seeking SMPP-native multi-carrier routing.

Project Status

This project is in the research and specification phase.
Contributions, feedback, and domain expertise are welcome.

Contributing

We welcome contributions from developers, domain experts, and potential users. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Important: All contributions must be your own original work or clearly attributed open-source material with a compatible licence. Copyright infringement and licence violations will not be tolerated and will result in immediate removal of the offending contribution. If you are unsure whether a piece of code, text, or other material is safe to contribute, open an issue and ask before submitting.

Licence

Licence to be determined. See discussion for context.