Better Control over SMS Messages with Geo Permissions

Plivo’s cloud communication platform lets you send text messages globally via web and mobile apps. With our new feature, geo permissions for SMS, we’re putting more control of your SMS traffic into your hands. Geo permission offers a simple way to control which countries you want to enable or disable for SMS messages, without the need for developer support or code base changes.

SMS geo permissions is a tool to reduce the risk of SMS fraud and abuse. We suggest you maintain international geo permissions to protect your business from sending unwanted messaging.  

Advantages of maintaining international geo permissions

Here are some of the top reasons for you to consider managing your SMS traffic by geographic region.

• Prevent SMS fraud: Though it’s unlikely, your Plivo Auth ID or Auth Token may get compromised. If that happens and you have geo permission enabled, you can reduce the potential for a surcharge in SMS fees for messages sent to high-rate destinations.
• Reduce nonserviceable destinations: Among the 195 countries across the globe and more than 240 country codes, there are many places where your text messages could end up. If your web or mobile app caters to a specific geography or country, you may want to block SMS traffic to other countries and aligning your SMS spend with where your customers are concentrated.
• Avoid incorrect destination numbers: An incorrect or incomplete country code can land your text message in an unexpected part of the world. Some recipients’ phone numbers come from forms, and some form applications are not equipped to automatically geotag form inputs. Consider enabling geo permissions if you don’t validate user input using code. 
• Improve customer segmentation: If you segment your SMS traffic using subaccounts, you can use geo permission to customize the reach for each subaccount. If a particular subaccount caters to a specific region, you can disable text messages to other destinations.   

Simple to set up, easy to maintain

Plivo customers can send messages to all countries, or with a click of a button disable messages to all countries except the ones where your audience is focused. By default we enable traffic to the US, Canada, Australia, India, and the country where your account is registered. To modify your geo permissions, navigate to Messaging > Geo Permissions on the Plivo console. 

What happens if you send a text message to a disabled country?

If you try to send a text message to a country for which sending is disabled, Plivo will block it and you will not be charged for the message. On SMS logs, the message state will be “failed” and the error code will be 450. 

Visit our documentation for more information about geo permissions.

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