General Bytes uses Twilio to send SMS codes to you & your customers. The charges per SMS vary across regions, but General Bytes essentially just charges your Organization for reimbursements.
The major phone carriers around the globe impose limits upon the frequency of SMS transmission. They do this to prevent SMS spam & to provide a consistent service. The carriers use equipment that has limitations; there’s no getting around this. When these limits are exceeded, the carrier will “filter” out the excess SMS traffic, and those messages will simply be discarded: lost. You’ll commonly see these filtering events occur in batches.
General Bytes has reached the point that the number of messages we send will occasionally exceed the limits, and using our API key may result in service degradation. We can’t change it, Twilio can’t change it, and the carriers can’t change it. You CAN change it, or at least reduce the frequency of incidence - by creating your own Twilio account. In so doing, you’ll avoid the congestion that is inevitable in our operation.
This doesn’t mean you’ll never lose another SMS, it just means that the service will be handled directly by Twilio - and you’ll be able to monitor their performance directly. You’ll also be freed from any network congestion on the GB end of your operation, and that typically translates to fewer losses.
Navigate to Twilio at: https://www.twilio.com/
Create your Twilio account.
NOTE: The use case for SMS messaging within CAS is for Identity Verification and Opt-in Notifications.
Crypto-related solicitations are forbidden, as is any other “high-risk” financial spam.
Twilio will reject you (or close your account) if you use their service for such messaging.
US/Canada guidelines: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045004974-Forbidden-Message-Categories-for-SMS-and-MMS-in-the-US-and-Canada
Provide a valid email & phone number, and the following options:
Locate your keys:
Both the “ACCOUNT SID” and “AUTH TOKEN” are required.
Buy a phone number.
In this example, the cost is only $1/month.
Make sure it is SMS & Voice capable (MMS, Fax not required).
Assemble the required parameters:
Using a colon “:” between all 3 parameters, place them in this specific order:
SID:TOKEN:PHONE
For this example, it would look something like:
ACc1ef9a43c47020ee0c4a0a5980dc839b:8a1d4ae90d81306e0208eec086f:+18558101002
Copy & paste the entire parameter string in one paste operation.
CAS fields doesn’t append previous entries.
Navigate to CAS: Organization: SMS Provider
Uncheck the “Use GB API Key” option, and enter the parameters from the previous step:
Save it.
Return to the setting, and test it.
If everything went as planned, you should see:
Special thanks to Phil Sigler for doing some of this legwork!