# What is AWS End User Messaging SMS? **Note** The SMS, MMS, and voice (text to speech) features of Amazon Pinpoint are now called AWS End User Messaging. [AWS End User Messaging SMS](https://aws.amazon.com/end-user-messaging/sms/) is an application-to-person (A2P) SMS, MMS, RCS, and voice messaging service which provides the global scale, resiliency, and flexibility required to deliver messaging in any web, mobile, or business applications. SMS messages are used for their most important and urgent communications as SMS proves to be the most effective and ubiquitous communication channel available. Customers prioritize time critical and must-deliver use-cases such as one-time password (OTP) login and authentication, marketing messages, citizen outreach, delivery status updates, or appointment reminders to name a few. Multimedia messaging service (MMS) is an extension of SMS that provides the ability to send media messages to a mobile phone which includes image, audio, text, or video files. You can use MMS to improve engagement through a variety of branding, workflow, and marketing use cases. Rich Communication Services (RCS) for business provides verified brand identity, delivery receipts, and improved messaging performance for your messages. AWS End User Messaging SMS supports sending text messages via RCS with automatic SMS fallback when RCS is unavailable. You create an AWS RCS Agent to represent your brand, and use phone pools to enable seamless RCS-to-SMS fallback. For more information, see [RCS messaging](rcs.md). The information in this user guide is intended for all AWS End User Messaging SMS users, including marketers, business users, and developers. This guide contains information that's especially helpful for users who mainly interact with AWS End User Messaging SMS by using the AWS Management Console. **Note** AWS End User Messaging SMS uses the `pinpoint-sms-voice-v2` API namespace. There are several other documents that are companions to this document. The following documents provide reference information related to the AWS End User Messaging SMS APIs: + [AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 API](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/apireference_smsvoicev2/Welcome.html) + [AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 AWS CLI reference](https://docs.aws.amazon.com//cli/latest/reference/pinpoint-sms-voice-v2/) AWS End User Messaging SMS includes an API (called the AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 API) that was designed for sending SMS, MMS and voice messages. While the Amazon Pinpoint API is focused on sending messages through scheduled and event-driven campaigns and journeys, the AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 API provides dedicated features and capabilities for sending SMS, MMS, and voice messages directly to individual recipients. You can use AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice API v2 independently of the Amazon Pinpoint campaign and journey features, or you can use both at the same time to accommodate different use cases. If you already use Amazon Pinpoint to send SMS, MMS, or voice messages, your account is already configured to use this API. Here are some key feature differences between the two APIs. **** | APIs | Amazon Pinpoint API | AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 API | | --- | --- | --- | | Features | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/sms-voice/latest/userguide/what-is-sms-mms.html) | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/sms-voice/latest/userguide/what-is-sms-mms.html) | | Number of AWS Regions | 13 AWS Regions | 32 AWS Regions | This API is a good solution for users who have a multi-tenant architecture, such as Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). This API can be used to establish that event data, origination phone numbers, and opt-out lists are separated for different tenants. When you use the SMS and Voice v2 API, we recommend that you set up phone pools, configuration sets and event destinations. The SMS and Voice v2 API doesn't automatically emit event data for the messages that you send. Setting up event destinations to capture important event data, such as message delivery and failure events. Version 2 of this API was preceded by Version 1. If you currently use Version 1 of this API, it will continue to be available, and you can continue to use it. However, if you migrate to Version 2, you will gain additional features, such as the ability to create pools of phone numbers, request new phone numbers programmatically, and enable or disable certain capabilities of phone numbers. **Topics** + [ ## Are you a first-time AWS End User Messaging SMS user? ](#first-time-user) + [ ## Features of AWS End User Messaging SMS ](#servicename-feature-overview) + [ ## Accessing AWS End User Messaging SMS ](#acessing-servicename) + [ ## Regional availability ](#sms-regions) + [How does SMS messaging work](what-is-sms.md) + [ # AWS End User Messaging SMS concepts ](what-is-concepts.md) ## Are you a first-time AWS End User Messaging SMS user? If you're using AWS End User Messaging SMS for the first time, we recommend that you first read the following sections: + [How Short Message Service (SMS) works](what-is-sms.md) + [Tutorial for sending a message using AWS End User Messaging SMS](getting-started-tutorial.md) ## Features of AWS End User Messaging SMS AWS End User Messaging SMS provides the following features and capabilities: **Global application-to-person messaging** Application-to-person messaging provides SMS and MMS messaging to mobile phone numbers. **Registration of origination identities** Use AWS End User Messaging SMS to register your phone numbers or sender IDs and track the registration status. **SMS simulator** Use the SMS simulator to test your messaging environment. **RCS messaging** Send verified, branded text messages via Rich Communication Services (RCS) with automatic SMS fallback. RCS provides verified brand identity, delivery receipts, and improved messaging performance. For more information, see [RCS messaging](rcs.md). **Notify – managed OTP and verification messaging** Send templated SMS and voice verification messages using AWS-managed phone numbers. No origination identity provisioning required. For more information, see [What is AWS End User Messaging Notify?](notify.md). ## Accessing AWS End User Messaging SMS You can request and manage your AWS End User Messaging SMS origination identities (phone number or sender ID) using the following interfaces: **AWS End User Messaging SMS console** The web interface where you create and manage AWS End User Messaging SMS resources. If you've signed up for an AWS account, you can access the AWS End User Messaging SMS console from the AWS Management Console. **AWS Command Line Interface** Interact with AWS services using commands in your command line shell. The AWS Command Line Interface is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. For more information about the AWS CLI, see [AWS Command Line Interface User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/). You can find the AWS End User Messaging SMS commands in the [AWS CLI Command Reference](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/). **AWS SDKs** If you're a software developer that prefers to build applications using language-specific APIs instead of submitting a request over HTTP or HTTPS, AWS provides libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources. These libraries provide basic functions that automate tasks, such as cryptographically signing your requests, retrying requests, and handling error responses. These functions help make it more efficient for you to get started. For more information, see [Tools to Build on AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/developer/tools/). ## Regional availability AWS End User Messaging SMS is available in several AWS Regions in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. In each Region, AWS maintains multiple Availability Zones. These Availability Zones are physically isolated from each other, but are united by private, low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant network connections. These Availability Zones are used to provide very high levels of availability and redundancy, while also minimizing latency. To learn more about AWS Regions, see [Specify which AWS Regions your account can use](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/accounts/latest/reference/manage-acct-regions.html) in the *Amazon Web Services General Reference*. For a list of all the Regions where AWS End User Messaging SMS is currently available and the endpoint for each Region, see [Endpoints and quotas](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/end-user-messaging.html) for AWS End User Messaging SMS and Voice v2 API and [AWS service endpoints](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#pinpoint_region) in the *Amazon Web Services General Reference* or the following table. To learn more about the number of Availability Zones that are available in each Region, see [AWS global infrastructure](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/). **Region availability** | Region name | Region | Endpoint | Supports SMS/MMS channel | Supports voice channel | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | US East (N. Virginia) | us-east-1 | sms-voice.us-east-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | US East (Ohio) | us-east-2 | sms-voice.us-east-2.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-east-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | US West (N. California) | us-west-1 | sms-voice.us-west-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-west-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | US West (Oregon) | us-west-2 | sms-voice.us-west-2.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-west-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Africa (Cape Town) | af-south-1 | sms-voice.af-south-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) | ap-south-2 | sms-voice.ap-south-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Asia Pacific (Jakarta) | ap-southeast-3 | sms-voice.ap-southeast-3.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Asia Pacific (Melbourne) | ap-southeast-4 | sms-voice.ap-southeast-4.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Asia Pacific (Mumbai) | ap-south-1 | sms-voice.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Osaka) | ap-northeast-3 | sms-voice.ap-northeast-3.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Seoul) | ap-northeast-2 | sms-voice.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Singapore) | ap-southeast-1 | sms-voice.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Sydney) | ap-southeast-2 | sms-voice.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (Tokyo) | ap-northeast-1 | sms-voice.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Asia Pacific (New Zealand) | ap-southeast-6 | sms-voice.ap-southeast-6.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Asia Pacific (Taipei) | ap-east-2 | sms-voice.ap-east-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | AWS GovCloud (US-East) | us-gov-east-1 | sms-voice.us-gov-east-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-gov-east-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | AWS GovCloud (US-West) | us-gov-west-1 | sms-voice.us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Canada (Central) | ca-central-1 | sms-voice.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Canada West (Calgary) | ca-west-1 | sms-voice.ca-west-1.amazonaws.com sms-voice-fips.ca-west-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Europe (Frankfurt) | eu-central-1 | sms-voice.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Europe (Ireland) | eu-west-1 | sms-voice.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Europe (London) | eu-west-2 | sms-voice.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Europe (Milan) | eu-south-1 | sms-voice.eu-south-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Europe (Paris) | eu-west-3 | sms-voice.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Europe (Spain) | eu-south-2 | sms-voice.eu-south-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Europe (Stockholm) | eu-north-1 | sms-voice.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Europe (Zurich) | eu-central-2 | sms-voice.eu-central-2.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Israel (Tel Aviv) | il-central-1 | sms-voice.il-central-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | Middle East (Bahrain) | me-south-1 | sms-voice.me-south-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | | Middle East (UAE) | me-central-1 | sms-voice.me-central-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | No | | South America (São Paulo) | sa-east-1 | sms-voice.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com | Yes | Yes | # How Short Message Service (SMS) works How does SMS messaging work [Short Message Service](https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/sms/), commonly known as SMS, is a service that allows the exchange of text messages between mobile devices. SMS messages are typically short, with a maximum length of 160 characters, supported by virtually all mobile devices, and can be sent and received on various mobile networks. SMS is widely used for personal and business communication, providing a quick and convenient way to send concise messages to individuals or groups of people. **How does application to person (A2P) SMS work?** SMS uses the infrastructure that's already in place for voice calls, operating on the signaling channels of mobile networks. Here's a simplified overview of how SMS works: 1. **Application initiates a message**. The application creates a text message and addresses the message to the recipient's phone number. AWS receives the message request, processes the message. 1. **AWS sends the message to the Short Message Service Center (SMSC)**. An SMSC is a centralized server responsible for handling SMS messages. AWS selects the appropriate SMS message route to deliver the message to the end user’s mobile device. The selected SMS route may be an intermediary that then routes the SMS message to the SMSC or the SMS can be routed directly to the SMSC. This results in the message leaving the AWS boundary and being delivered to the correct SMSC. 1. **SMSC delivers the message**. The SMSC uses a series of signaling messages to send the message to the recipient's mobile network. 1. **Message is stored**. The recipient's SMSC receives the message and temporarily stores it until the recipient's device is available to receive it. 1. **Recipient's device gets notified**. When the recipient's device is reachable, the recipient's SMSC sends a notification message indicating that a new SMS is available. 1. **Message is retrieved**: The recipient's mobile device connects to the recipient's SMSC to retrieve the message. 1. **Message displays**: The recipient's mobile device receives the message and displays it to the recipient. 1. **Possible delivery confirmation**. The recipient's mobile device might send a delivery receipt (DLR) confirmation back to the sender's SMSC, indicating that the message was successfully received. This DLR is then relayed back to AWS who then passes it along to application owner. # AWS End User Messaging SMS concepts This section describes key concepts and defines terminology specific to AWS End User Messaging SMS. **Configuration set** Configuration sets are sets of rules that are applied when you send a message. For example, a configuration set can specify a destination for events related to a message. When SMS events occur (such as delivery or failure events), they are routed to the destination associated with the configuration set that you specified when you sent the message. **Event destination** An event destination is a location (such as a Amazon CloudWatch Logs Group, a Amazon Data Firehose stream, or an Amazon Simple Notification Service topic) that SMS and voice events are sent to. To use event destinations, you first create the destination, and then associate it with a configuration set. When you send a message, your call to the API can include a reference to a configuration set. **Keywords** A keyword is a specific word or phrase that a customer can send to your number to elicit a response, such as an informational message, opting-in to receive more messages, a special offer and other promotional and transactional messages. When your number receives a message that begins with a keyword, AWS End User Messaging SMS responds with a customizable message. **Opt-out list** A list of destination identities that should not have messages sent to them. Destination identities are automatically added to the opt-out list if they reply to your origination number with the keyword STOP. If you attempt to send a message to a destination number that is on an opt-out list, and the opt-out list is associated with the pool used to send the message, AWS End User Messaging SMS doesn't attempt to send the message. If you enable the self-managed opt-out feature for a phone number, then your recipients aren't automatically opted out when they reply to your messages with the keyword STOP. **Originator** An originator refers to either a phone number or sender ID. **Origination phone number** See phone number. **Originator sender ID** See sender ID. Also called originator ID, an alphanumeric string that identifies the sender. **Phone number** Also called originator number, a numeric string of numbers that identifies the sender. This can be a long code, short code, toll-free number (TFN), or 10 digit long code (10DLC). For more information, see [Choosing an origination identity](phone-number-types.md). **Phone pool** A collection of phone numbers and sender IDs that share the same settings that you can use to send messages. When you send messages through a phone pool, it chooses an appropriate origination identity to send the message as. If an origination identity in the phone pool fails, the phone pool will fail over to another origination identity if it is in the same phone pool. **Registered phone number** Some countries require you to register your company's identity before you can purchase phone numbers or sender IDs. They also require a review of the messages that you send to recipients in their country. Registrations are processed by external third parties, so the amount of time to process a registration varies by phone number type and country. After all required registrations are complete, the status of your phone numbers changes to **Active** and is available for use. For more information about which countries require registration, see [Supported countries and regions for SMS messaging with AWS End User Messaging SMS](phone-numbers-sms-by-country.md). **Simulator phone number** A simulator phone number behaves as an origination phone number and verified destination phone number. Simulator phone numbers do not require registration. **Sender ID** Also called originator ID, an alphanumeric string that identifies the sender. For more information, see [Choosing an origination identity](phone-number-types.md) **Verified phone number/Verified destination phone number** See phone number. When your account is in Sandbox you can only send SMS messages to phone numbers that have gone through the verification process. The phone number receives an SMS messaging with a verification code. The received code must be entered into the console to complete the process. **Notify configuration** A resource that represents your brand identity and messaging settings for sending templated SMS and voice messages. A Notify configuration includes a display name, use case, enabled channels, enabled countries, and an optional associated phone pool. **Notify template** A pre-approved, AWS-managed message template for sending OTP and verification messages. Templates include variable placeholders (such as a verification code) that are substituted at send time. Customers select from available templates but cannot create or modify them.