Phone Pool System

[ben851]

Description

As a system operator I would like the short code to be used only with services that are associated with it, instead of the short code being used globally, so that the short code is only used for 2FA messages.

As a policy person, I want long codes and short codes to be sent from Canada only so that SMS do not come from the US.

WHY are we building?

Short codes need to be reserved exclusively for 2FA as per our agreement with telecoms

• We need the ability to isolate certain long codes, so that they can be used for a specific purpose (i.e dedicated long codes)
• We would like the ability to explicitly configure how a service uses short/long codes
• We should respect our own policies on data sovereignty and short/long code usage

WHAT are we building?

Implement a system where we can, on a per-service/template basis:

• Create dedicated long-codes group
• Optionally opt in for short codes
• Default to random long code

VALUE created by our solution

• Isolate the short code for 2FA -- not lose it!
• Further customizations of how we select the codes to send a notifications with
• Data sovereignty -- we could repatriate the dedicated long codes into ca-central-1

Acceptance Criteria

• [ ] Short code is used exclusively with associated service or templates.
• [ ] Dedicated long codes are used exclusively with associated service or templates.
• [ ] Pool of long codes is used by default by serviced with no explicit associations.

QA Steps

• [ ] Send an sms using a template in the shortcode list. It should be sent from the Pinpoint shortcode pool.
• [ ] Send an sms using a template not in the list. It should be sent from the Pinpoint default pool.
• [ ] Send an sms using a service with a dedicated number. If should be sent through SNS (and from the dedicated number)
• [ ] Send an sms to a US number (ex: 7065550123, a fake number in Georgia). If should be sent through SNS
• [ ] Send an email to verify that they still work.
• [ ] Unsubscribe via STOP to the shortcode and verify that you're on the opt out list.
• [ ] Remove your self from the opt out list.
• [ ] Sends appear in dashboard.

[jimleroyer]

We received communication back from AWS for proposed solutions we had in mind, this is their feedback:

1. Creating a pool of numbers is a recommended option, however, PoolId can only be used in Amazon Pinpoint with the SendTextMessage API call [1] where you could provide it in "OriginationIdentity" parameter. The primary benefit of this approach is 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. Please refer to our documentation for further information on phone pools [2].

2. If you choose to move your short code to a different region, it would be, as stated by you, an additional cost and effort, however, you would be able to use Amazon SNS. Please note that inter-region migration of short codes is not yet supported, hence, you would have to provision a new short code in ca-west-1 region which would be an additional cost.

3. Having a pool of codes of your own on the software side and having your own selection of codes would definitely provide you with the most flexibility, however, again it would be an additional cost and effort.

Summing up, using different pool of numbers with Amazon Pinpoint would be the recommended option at the moment.