Carrier lookup & number validation service
Phone number validation is an essential step in maintaining a clean contact list and ensuring your texts reach real recipients. The carrier lookup & number validation service helps you verify whether a phone number is valid and retrieve important details such as carrier, number type, and formatting before sending SMS campaigns.
Textmagic offers three carrier lookup options to suit different use cases:
This guide walks you through how to use the tool and understand its results.
What the validation tool does and its limitations
The carrier lookup & number validation service is designed to:
- Check if a phone number is valid and properly formatted
- Identify the carrier (mobile operator)
- Detect the number type (mobile, landline, or VoIP)
- Retrieve country, timezone, and formatting details
Number type detection is supported for most countries, but it is not available for Canada.
This helps you avoid sending messages to invalid numbers, reduce messaging costs, and improve campaign performance. It does not guarantee reachability of phone numbers.
The tool does not indicate whether a number can currently receive messages. For example, it does not show if a number is:
- Switched off or inactive
- Out of coverage or in roaming
- Temporarily unavailable due to network conditions
Step-by-step: how to validate phone numbers
- From the main menu, click More and select Bulk lookup.
- Click New carrier lookup.
- Upload a file with phone numbers or copy and paste them into the input field.
- Click Continue to start validation.
- Review the results.
After validation, the tool provides detailed information for each phone number, including:
- Validity status – Indicates whether the number is valid
- Phone number formats – E.164, international, national, and RFC3966 formats
- Out-of-country format – Dialing format from specific countries (for example, the US)
- Country and timezone – Country of origin and associated timezone
- Phone type – Mobile, landline, or VoIP
- Carrier name – Mobile network operator
- Mobile country code (MCC) – Identifies the country of the mobile network
- Network code (MNC) – Identifies the specific carrier network
Use this data to filter out invalid numbers, segment your audience, and ensure your messages are sent only to relevant contacts.
Best practices and when to use this tool
Use the carrier lookup & number validation service as part of your regular workflow to maintain a high-quality contact list.
Best practices:
- Validate numbers before every SMS campaign
- Use international format with country codes (E.164)
- Remove invalid or non-mobile numbers
- Segment contacts by carrier or phone type
When to use it:
- Importing new contact lists
- Running SMS marketing campaigns
- Cleaning outdated databases
- Reducing messaging costs