Fundamentals BroadNet answer

What is outbound SMS?

Last reviewed July 22, 20261 min readReviewed by BroadNet engineering

Quick answer

Outbound SMS — also called mobile-terminated (MT) SMS — is a message your business sends to a person's phone, such as an OTP, alert, notification, or marketing message. It is submitted through an SMS API or SMPP, routed to the recipient's operator, and confirmed by a delivery receipt. Most A2P traffic is outbound; pairing it with inbound SMS creates two-way conversations.

Plain-language definitionVendor-neutralReviewed July 22, 2026

DiagramHow an A2P message reaches the phone

Your applicationSends over the REST API or SMPP
BroadNet platformValidates, routes and bills each message
Operator SMSCDirect operator connection
Subscriber handsetThe message is delivered

The delivery receipt (DLR) travels back along the same path to your webhook

The long answer

Everything worth knowing, nothing that isn't.

§01

How it works

Your application submits the message over REST or SMPP; the platform routes it to the destination operator, which delivers it to the handset and returns a delivery receipt. See /answers/what-is-sms-api and /answers/what-is-dlr.

§02

Outbound vs inbound

Outbound (MT) is business-to-person; inbound (MO) is person-to-business. A one-way sender ID sends outbound only; a two-way number does both. See /answers/what-is-mo-vs-mt and /answers/what-is-inbound-sms.

§03

Making it reliable

Outbound delivery depends on route quality, registered sender IDs, correct encoding, and DLR monitoring. See /answers/how-to-improve-sms-delivery-rates.

BNWritten by the BroadNet engineering team·Operating carrier-grade messaging since 2003, headquartered in Dubai·Editorial standards

Build with this

Need help wiring this up?

The pages below are the products and integration guides that put this concept on the wire. If you'd rather walk through it live, our engineering team takes calls same-day during MENA working hours.

Talk to our engineering team

Feedback

Was this answer helpful?

Your vote helps us prioritise which answers to expand with examples, diagrams, and code snippets.

Yes No

Thanks — noted. We'll keep this answer maintained.

Got it. Tell us what was missing — send a quick note.

How we write and review content

Talk to a real engineer about your build.

We reply within one business day, and production accounts get 24/7 support. Our solutions engineers ship code, not scripts.

Talk to support Speak with sales

$ curl -X POST https://api.broadnet.me/sms/sendSms

Response SLA

Test-access requestsReply within 1 business day

Production24 / 7 · < 15 min

Operator NOC24 / 7 · pager

support@broadnet.me · +971 4 456 7768