Bandwidth is the carrier the SmartChoice main SmartTile server sends its SMS and MMS alerts through today. It is SmartChoice's account, not a connection you make: your contacts choose Instant Alert™ (text) or Visual Alert™ (image) in SmartTile, and Bandwidth delivers it.
A text gets read; an image of the outage e-mail gets understood at a glance. SmartTile sends both through Bandwidth. This is SmartChoice plumbing: each SmartTile server is set to send through Bandwidth or Twilio, and the SmartChoice main server is set to Bandwidth. What your team controls is who is alerted, when, and in which format — all in Client Contacts.
Plain text built from the same data as the outage e-mail: organization and location, N/M devices down, device, IP and hardware, Down since, and the ticket line. Recovery text gives the outage length.
The outage e-mail rendered once to a PNG, uploaded to Bandwidth's media store and sent image-only so it arrives as one message. If rendering or upload fails, the contact still gets the text version.
Client Contacts → the contact's SMS switch, mobile number and Instant Alert™ / Visual Alert™ choice. SMS is independent of e-mail, and goes only to contacts assigned to the affected location.
Each contact's escalation delay (15 min default) decides when their first text leaves; time-of-day boxes hold texts outside a contact's hours. The text does not wait for a ticket to be opened.
Outage texts repeat at most once per repeat window (60 min default). Recovery texts go only to contacts who were sent the outage text.
Each send draws on the company's SMS credit balance; a contact must be SMS-authorised. A send Bandwidth rejects is refunded. Admins are e-mailed at 80 %, 90 % and depleted.
The outage engine, escalation workflow SMS/MMS steps and ServiceAutomate Workflow Notify actions all go through the same sender and the same rules.
A server-wide suppression list blocks specific numbers from ever receiving an alert, on every path.
One image: the SmartTile outage e-mail for Head Office — organization, location, 2 of 3 devices down, the device and Down since 06:14, exactly as the e-mail shows it
Sent image-only so the phone shows a single message
3 credits from the company balance
api.bandwidth.com/api/v1/oauth2/tokenClient-credentials token, cached ~1 h, refreshed 60 s earlymessaging.bandwidth.com/api/v2/users/{account}/media/{name}Upload the rendered Visual Alert PNGmessaging.bandwidth.com/api/v2/users/{account}/messagesSend SMS applicationId, to, from, text or MMS media/api/webhooks/sms/bandwidthInbound: Bandwidth message-delivered / message-failed receipts, HTTP Basic auth — refused until the callback credentials are setThe Bandwidth client id/secret, account, messaging application and sending number are SmartChoice's, set on the server — never entered or displayed in SmartTile.
Every send uses a bearer token from the OAuth2 client-credentials grant, held in memory and refreshed before it expires.
Texts go only to a company's own contacts for the affected location; each send is recorded in that company's SMS usage ledger with its Bandwidth message id.
If Bandwidth rejects a send the credit is refunded and the message shows Failed with the reason; if the MMS image fails, the text alert still goes.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do we need a Bandwidth account? | No. SmartChoice sends on your behalf; you manage contacts and formats in SmartTile. |
| Can we see delivered / undelivered? | Every text is tracked under Client Contacts → SMS delivery as Delivered, Failed or Pending. Bandwidth receipts arrive once SmartChoice points the Bandwidth messaging application's callback at SmartTile — a one-time SmartChoice setup step; until then texts show Pending. |
| Why pay 3 credits for MMS? | The image is the full outage e-mail — the same layout your contacts get by e-mail — where a text carries a summary. Choose per contact. |