Why do my messages fail whenever I try to send an SMS to countries other than country X and why I am I charged for them?
Most likely this is because the default country code has been set for that particular country.
To explain in further detail, the default country code is intended for customers that terminate messages in one country on a frequent basis and aims to remove the extra hassle of including its international dialling code.
When it is set, our validation procedures check to see if recipient MSISDNs include the default dialling code and, if not, include it. So, the reason why the named messages are failing and being charged for is because they are being routed to the wrong country on account of being pre-fixed with that country's dialling code.
As an example, if a message was being set to a recipient in the UAE with an MSISDN of 97150929**23 and the default country code was set to 44 (i.e. UK) then our validation procedures would add the UK dialling code to the beginning (i.e. 4497150989**23). This message would then be routed to the appropriate SMSC(s) which handle our UK messages. This message would then fail to be delivered as such a number would not exist on any of the UK networks.
Although the default country code can be used by anyone, it is intended and recommended for customers that have an audience in one single country.