In short
Controlled messages are sent toward dedicated test SIMs through known sources. Guardivia compares expected and observed delivery characteristics, including Sender ID, content, message-centre information, delivery path indicators and timing, helping investigators determine whether traffic followed the expected route.
The comparison
The validation engine compares each submitted attribute against what arrived:
- Submitted Sender ID against received Sender ID
- Submitted content against received content, including any URL
- Expected destination operator against the operator observed by the device
- Sending timestamp against receiving timestamp, producing true end-to-end latency
- Expected encoding and message parts against what was received
- Gateway CDR and firewall decision against the device's observation
- Expected delivery status against actual handset receipt
What each discrepancy suggests
A Sender ID replaced by a local mobile number points toward SIM-based termination. A changed message-centre address points toward a path other than the declared one. Excessive latency suggests additional hops. Truncated content or broken multipart assembly suggests an intermediary re-encoding the message.
A message that a supplier reported as delivered but that never arrived at the handset is the most commercially significant result of all, because it means the delivery receipt itself was unreliable.
The verdicts a test can support
Results are expressed as evidence-based verdicts rather than a binary pass or fail:
- Confirmed legitimate or confirmed direct route
- Suspected grey route; suspected SIM-box or SIM-farm termination; suspected unauthorised GT route
- Sender ID modified or replaced; content or URL modified; message-centre changed; encoding changed
- Multipart message incomplete; excessive delivery delay; duplicate delivery; message not received
- Inconclusive due to insufficient evidence, or requires signaling or CDR correlation
The limit worth stating
Testing can provide strong evidence about route behaviour, but a single test should not automatically be treated as definitive proof of the complete network path. A handset cannot see the originating Global Title, the exact SMSC path or the identity of every intermediary — those require network-side CDRs, traces or signaling records.
A defensible conclusion therefore correlates testing results with signaling, routing, messaging and other network evidence, and rests on repeated tests across time of day, message types and destination operators rather than a single send.