HLR checker is a service that verifies a mobile number is active and has a valid network connection. It allows a business to ensure that all their clients will receive their messages and eliminates any numbers that are no longer valid. This increases the effectiveness of SMS campaigns and reduces costs as they don’t need to pay for messages that nobody will read.
There are a few providers of this service, all with different pricing structures and features. For example, IPQS has a partnership with mobile network operators which gives them direct access to the home location register database and the associated subscriber information, resulting in improved hit rates and more accurate results when verifying the status of mobile phone numbers. The cost of this type of verification is very reasonable at just £0.10 per lookup, and there are discounts available if you purchase in bulk.
How Home Location Register Improves Mobile Communication
Other services such as Experian, who many will have heard of for credit checking/scoring also offer this service. They can perform a ‘point of capture’ lookup on all new and historic numbers added to their databases and are able to supply data in bulk, in real time.
In Ozeki 10 the HLR service is used by clicking the Route icon on the toolbar (Figure 17). You will be presented with a New message composing panel where you can enter a phone number and a tag. This tag is then attached to all SMS messages sent to that phone number, and this way you can tell whether a message was delivered or not. You can also get more detailed Lookup reports by selecting the i icon against any number in the list. This will show you the real time validity information such as current Mobile Network, portability information and the original network that the number was assigned to.
