Global Phone:FAQ
How accurate is Global Phone at identifying disconnected and invalid numbers?
Global Phone is 90% accurate when identifying disconnected and invalid numbers.
How does Global Phone validation work?
Global Phone uses proprietary technology that includes live Telco network data, phone switch signaling data, and years of research and development to validate phone numbers.
For CallerID, a new field is added onto the response that returns the name associated with the phone, if available.
For Premium, no new fields are added; instead, relevant fields are updated with up-to-date information from the live check.
- Result codes can change, allowing PS17 (live phone number) and PS22 (high confidence) to appear
- The phone type indicated in the result codes (PS07, PS08) may change as well
- Carrier may be updated to reflect latest changes
Please do note that since coverage is on a carrier to carrier basis, some carriers may stop supporting coverage for our premium services, and thus certain countries or carriers of countries can stop returning results.
How does Premium and CallerID impact the results, compared to Express?
For CallerID, a new field is added onto the response that returns the name associated with the phone, if available.
For Premium, no new fields are added; instead, relevant fields are updated with up-to-date information from the live check.
- Result codes can change, allowing PS17 (live phone number) and PS22 (high confidence) to appear
- The phone type indicated in the result codes (PS07, PS08) may change as well
- Carrier may be updated to reflect latest changes
What Exactly do the Latitude/Longitude fields designate to?
The coordinates from a phone response gives a general area of where the phone had originated from.
For example, if a phone was registered and activated in New York, but the recipient is currently in Pennsylvania, then the coordinates would show the New York area.
The coordinates do not correspond to a cellphone’s current location or the exact coordinates of a store the phone was activated in. The coordinates do not change with premium mode, but may be updated with our updates to the service.
Why is the response giving me a country abbreviation called “XV” or “XG”?
*Note: These country codes have been deprecated and no longer show in the latest version.
The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, assigns each country a two letter code, known as the alpha-2 codes. For example, the United States ISO 3166 Alpha-2 code is US. Canada is CA. Germany is DE. This is what fills the CountryAbbreviation response for our GlobalPhone service.
Their prominent use is for top level domains (.us, .uk, .de), but these codes are not always assigned on a country-to-country basis. Organizations can use an ISO3166 Alpha-2 code; for example, the European Patent Organization, uses the alpha-2 code EP (1).
In this case, alpha-2 code XV, falls under "User-assigned code elements" from codes XA to XZ, QM-QZ, and AA. For these assignments, Countries or organizations can request to use these codes for their own use; for example, the Unicode CLDR project took QO to represent Oceania . (2).
For XV in particular, it is in use for a code representing multiple countries. Example uses:
- BaFin (German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) used XV for defining assets found in multiple countries.
- ITU (Internation Telecommunications Union) assigned country dialing codes +882 and +883 to the alpha-2 code XV, to represent services that are not dedicated for a single country. (3)
XG is part of the User Assigned Code Elements in the ISO 3166 Alpha-2 standard - similar to XV
Also similar to XV (+882/+883), XG (+881) covers multiple countries but the difference is that the service is used for satellite systems.
Here are some resources to learn more about ISO 3166’s Alpha-2 standards:
- (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Codes_currently_agreed_not_to_use
- (2) - https://www.drupal.org/node/1157504
- (3) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Networks_(country_code)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Mobile_Satellite_System (article on the +881/XG country code)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_calling_codes (article on what country codes belong to which calling codes)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#User-assigned_code_elements (article on the alpha-2 User assigned code elements)
What are the valid inputs for the Global Phone’s Lookup method?
The Lookup method can take in a phone number, a country name or ISO2 code, and a country of origin’s name or ISO2 code.
The phone number can be inserted in the local or international format.
The phone country and the country of origin can take in the official country name or the ISO2 code for that region.
| Territory Name | Territory’s ISO2 Code | Country it falls in | Reassigned ISO2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Åland Islands | AX | Finland | FI |
| Bouvet Island | BV | Norway | NO |
| Cocos (Keeling) Islands | CC | Australia | AU |
| Christmas Island | CX | Australia | AU |
| Western Sahara | EH | Morocco | MA |
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | GS | Great Britian / United Kingdom | GB |
| Heard Island and McDonald Islands | HM | Australia | AU |
| Pitcairn | PN | Great Britian / United Kingdom | GB |
| Svalbard and Jan Mayen | SJ | Norway | NO |
| French Southern Territories | TF | FR | FR |
| United States Minor Outlying Islands | UM | United States | US |
| Vatican City / Holy See | VA | Italy | IT |
What are the Speeds of the Global Phone Web Service?
The following are the average speeds of Global Phone (per record) depending on what options are enabled:
| Action | Throughput (Average) |
|---|---|
| Express Mode (Only) | < 100ms |
| Premium Mode (Only) | 500-1000ms |
| CNAM (CallerID) | 300-600ms |
| Premium Mode + CNAM | 1000-2000ms |
| Cached Data (Previously Verified Phone Numbers in the last 180 days) |
< 200ms |