Acquire a phone number from Twilio and configure it for SMS messaging
After you sign up for a Twilio account here, and log in to your account here, to buy a phone number click on ‘Phone Numbers’ on the left panel > ‘Manage’ > ‘Buy a number: Then select the country where you want your phone number to located from the ‘Country’ drop-down list, check the checkboxes for the capabilities that you want your number to have: Voice, SMS, MMS, Fax. Next, under ‘Search criteria’ you can select ‘Locality, then enter the name of a state or city in the next textbox, then click the ‘Search’ button. If you click ‘Advanced Search; you can add additional filters: local/mobile/toll-free number, (providing proof of) address requirements, etc. After you click the ‘Search’ button, all the available phone numbers will be listed, according to your filters.
Choose one phone number and click the ‘Buy’ button. A pop-up window will inform you about the number of capabilities, etc. Click the ‘Buy ... button again and you will be redirected to the payment page where you can pay with your debit/credit card. After purchase, the phone number will be listed on the active phone numbers page: on the left panel click ‘Phone Numbers’ > ‘Manage’ > ‘Active phone numbers: If you click on the phone number you will go to the ‘Configure’ page for that number, where you can add the webhook URL for incoming messages, as explained in the Twilio Settings section from below.
To be able to send messages from a phone number that you have purchased as explained above, you will have to enable sending messages to the country/countries where the destination numbers are located. To enable sending messages to different countries, on the left panel, click on ‘Messaging’ > ‘Settings’ > ‘Geo permissions’ On the ‘Messaging Geographic Permissions page you can check each country to which you want to be able to send messages, or you can select whole continents by checking the ‘Enable all’ checkbox under each continent's name.
You can also associate your number with a ‘Messaging Service’ either alone or together with other numbers or Alphanumeric Sender IDs. A Messaging Service is a type of ‘bundling’ messaging functionalities around a set of senders. The same feature configuration applies to all the senders (long code numbers, shortcodes, toll-free numbers, Alphanumeric Sender IDs, etc.) in the same Messaging Service pool. To create a Messaging Service and associate a number with it, on the left panel, click on ‘Messaging’ > ‘Services, then click the ‘Create Messaging Service’ button, enter a name for the new Messaging Service in the ‘Messaging Service friendly name’ field, then select the general purpose for the Messaging Service under ‘Select what you want to use Messaging for’ (‘Notify users; ‘Market services, ‘Verify users, ‘Engage in a discussion’, ‘Poll and survey users, or you can select ‘Not listed here’). After you click ‘Create Messaging Service’, you will see the ‘Sender Pool’ page. There, when you will click the ‘Add Senders’ button, a pop up window will open. Under ‘Sender Type’ you will select any of ‘Phone Number; ‘Short Code; ‘Alpha Sender’ etc. If you select ‘Phone Number’ and click ‘Continue’, you will be able to add any of your active phone numbers to the new Messaging Service, then, on the ‘Integration’ page you will be able to configure the behavior for incoming messages, delivery status webhook and queue time limit. There are also the ‘Content Settings, ‘A2P & Compliance’ and ‘Opt-Out Management’ sections, where you can find different useful options.
If during tests you try to send a message from a 10 digit number to itself, it won't get through, since Twilio doesn't allow sending SMS messages from a 10 digit number to itself.
