The basics
Can I receive SMS without a SIM card?
Answer
Yes. A phone number is an entry in a routing table rather than a physical object, so the entry can point at a gateway instead of at a SIM in a handset. HushSMS rents numbers whose inbound SMS terminates in a browser panel and, if you want it, a webhook — no phone, no SIM tray, no roaming. To the sender it is an ordinary mobile number that delivered.
The longer version
Delivery notifications, two-factor systems and support lines all terminate SMS to software, over the same SS7 and SMPP paths as a message to a handset. The only part that differs is the last hop, and the sending network cannot see it. Three things break it, none of them the missing SIM: the service rejects the range outright, the message gets filtered as application-to-person traffic somewhere upstream, or the number was recycled and a previous holder already registered.
See also
Related questions
Sources
- ITU-T Recommendation E.164 — The international public telecommunication numbering plan · International Telecommunication UnionCountry calling codes, national significant number lengths, number structure
- ITU-T E.164 national numbering plans (Operational Bulletin annex) · International Telecommunication UnionPer-country numbering plans, mobile ranges, trunk prefixes
- ITU-T Recommendation E.123 — Notation for national and international telephone numbers · International Telecommunication UnionHow the example numbers on country pages are formatted
- ISO 3166-1 — Codes for the representation of names of countries · International Organization for StandardizationTwo-letter country identifiers used throughout this catalogue
Answered by HushSMS, updated