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Comment by rsync | Hacker News Reader

No, this is easy.

Twilio API has a simple lookup function (call over curl) to see provider and type of number. Also shows subscribers name (usually).

I have this in a shell script and look up numbers all the time:

  /usr/local/bin/curl -s -X GET "https://lookups.twilio.com/v1/PhoneNumbers/$number?Type=carrier&Type=caller-name" -u $accountsid:$authtoken | /usr/local/bin/jq '.'

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If the owner of the number is a customer of a different telco (not Twilio), by what mechanism can Twilio determine whether the it's a physical (sim/esim/landline) or virtual number?

Sure, some operators operate only physical or only virtual, but others (like Google) operate both.

This isn’t something casually identified with flashy software solutions or APIs, it’s more of a relationships with carriers and other companies in the telco space sorta thing. It gets even more fun when you start looking in to MO and MT on the SMPP side of things.

by the way, if you only need a validation of a number, no need for Twilio: this is a great lib https://github.com/giggsey/libphonenumber-for-php

https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/

This explains how a customer of Twilio can request the info from Twilio.

I asked how Twilio obtains the information.

https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050891214-Ge...

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