Phone Accuracy at Your Fingertips: Learn More About Service Objects’ Phone Validation Services

One of the key aspects of Customer Data Validation is phone validation. Service Objects currently provides four key services that focus on Phone Validation:

• DOTS Phone Validation – International
• DOTS Phone Exchange
• DOTS Geophone Plus
• DOTS Phone Append.

Each of these services meet different needs, and this article will focus on what each one does and how they differ from one another.

Service overview

First, we will look at the basic functions of each of these Phone Validation services. Then, we will explore the inputs and outputs of each service in more detail.

Phone Validation – International

Our flagship phone validation service Phone Validation – International provides in-depth carrier and exchange information, as well as validating the quality of phone numbers using a quantitative 0-10 scoring system. It provides notes and warnings about the input numbers that would help indicate why a number might have a poor-quality score and not be usable.

Phone Exchange

Phone Exchange 2 returns comprehensive carrier and exchange information for US and Canada numbers, including ported status, SMS and MMS details, and whether or not a phone is a landline, mobile, VOIP or a prepay phone, with the last two representing higher risks for fraud.

Geophone Plus (aka Reverse-Phone Lookup)

Geophone Plus 2 is essentially a reverse-phone lookup service, similar to Phone Exchange 2, in that it will also take a phone number and return exchange information, but it also returns available subscriber or business contact info such as name and address for US and Canadian phone numbers. One particularly important feature of Geophone Plus 2 is that it can determine whether the phone number is used for business or residential purposes.

Phone Append

Phone Append 2 returns information about US and Canada landline telephone numbers. It accepts inputs such as a contact’s name and address, and it can return the landline telephone number tied to the information, along with a rating of certainty for how likely it is that the number is a match for this contact.

Input and output comparison

To make it easier to select the right service for your needs, we will compare the inputs and the outputs for each service, to give you a better understanding of what each service needs to work and what it returns. First, the table below compares the inputs used for each of these four services.

Phone Service Inputs

Phone Service Outputs

Next, the table below compares the outputs from each of these services. 

Response comparison

Finally, this last section will look at the responses of each service using actual data, to help provide a better understanding of how each service works and what they return. More details about these return values can be found in the Developers Guide for each of these services linked at the bottom of this blog.

Phone Validation – International (input: 805-963-1700, Country: USA)

{

“phoneIn”: “8059631700”,

“score”: 10,

“validPhone”: true,

“validPhoneLength”: true,

“countryCode”: 1,

“formatNational”: “(805) 963-1700”,

“formatInternational”: “+1 805-963-1700”,

“formatE164”: “+18059631700”,

“locality”: “Cambria”,

“adminArea”: “CA”,

“country”: “United States”,

“countryISO2”: “US”,

“countryISO3”: “USA”,

“latitude”: 35.5572,

“longitude”: -121.083,

“latLongMatchLevel”: “Locality”,

“timeZones”: [

{

“zoneName”: “America/Los_Angeles”,

“zoneAbbr”: “PDT”,

“countryISO3”: “USA”,

“utcOffset”: -7

}

],

“lineType”: “VOIP”,

“notes”: [

“IsNANPA”,

“IsPorted”,

“MissingCountryCode”

],

“warnings”: [],

“currentProvider”: {

“providerID”: “981E”,

“providerName”: “BANDWIDTH.COM – CA”

},

“lastPortedDate”: “2019-05-16”,

}

Phone Exchange (input: 805-963-1700)

<ExchangeInfoResults>
<ExchangeInfo>
<PhoneNumber>8059631700</PhoneNumber>
<Name>BANDWIDTH.COM – CA</Name>
<City>CAMBRIA</City>
<State>CALIFORNIA</State>
<Country>US</Country>
<LineType>VOIP</LineType>
<TimeZone>PST</TimeZone>
<Latitude>35.5572</Latitude>
<Longitude>-121.083</Longitude>
<SMSAddress/>
<MMSAddress/>
<PortedInfo>
<OriginalName>FRONTIER CALIFORNIA INC.</OriginalName>
<OriginalLineType>LANDLINE</OriginalLineType>
<PortedDate>2019-05-16</PortedDate>
<LATA>740</LATA>
</PortedInfo>
<NoteCodes>3,6</NoteCodes>
<NoteDescriptions>IsPorted,IsVOIP</NoteDescriptions>
</ExchangeInfo>
</ExchangeInfoResults>

GeoPhone Plus (input: 805-963-1700, TestType: FULL)

<PhoneInfo>
<Provider>
<Name>BANDWIDTH.COM – CA</Name>
<City>CAMBRIA</City>
<State>CALIFORNIA</State>
<Latitude>35.5572</Latitude>
<Longitude>-121.083</Longitude>
<LineType>VOIP</LineType>
</Provider>
<Contacts>
<Contact>
<Name>SERVICE OBJECTS</Name>
<Address>27 E COTA ST STE 500</Address>
<City>SANTA BARBARA</City>
<State>CA</State>
<PostalCode>93101-7602</PostalCode>
<PhoneType>BUSINESS</PhoneType>
<Latitude>34.420403</Latitude>
<Longitude>-119.693931</Longitude>
<SICCode>73750000</SICCode>
<SICDesc>INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SERVICES</SICDesc>
<QualityScore>HIGH</QualityScore>
</Contact>
</Contacts>
<SMSAddress/>
<MMSAddress/>
<DateFirstSeen/>
<DateOfPorting>2019-05-16</DateOfPorting>
<NoteCodes>1,2,3</NoteCodes>
<NoteDescriptions>IsMailable,IsConnected,IsPorted</NoteDescriptions>
<TokensUsed>65</TokensUsed>
</PhoneInfo>

Phone Append (input: business address data)

<PhoneInfo>
<Phone>(805) 963-1700</Phone>
<Name>Service Objects</Name>
<Address>27 E Cota St Ste 500</Address>
<City>Santa Barbara</City>
<State>CA</State>
<PostalCode>93101-7602</PostalCode>
<IsResidential>False</IsResidential>
<Certainty>High</Certainty>
<LineType>VOIP</LineType>
</PhoneInfo>

Try it yourself – we’re here to help

If you are interested in learning more about these services, you can, visit our Phone Insight product pages, where you can access a free trial key that comes with 500 free lookup, check out the Developers Guides and schedule some time with our Phone Validation experts.