# SignalWire

> SignalWire is a Programmable Unified Communications (PUC) platform for voice, messaging, video, and AI agents, built by the team behind FreeSWITCH. It owns call state, lifecycle, and routing inside a carrier-grade media engine — rather than leaving that to application code — with an AI kernel embedded in the media path and AI agents governed by code (System-Directed AI) rather than prompts alone.

## Verified facts
- [Category and architecture](https://signalwire.com/platform/programmable-unified-communications): SignalWire defines itself as the Programmable Unified Communications control plane, distinct from CPaaS.
- [Carrier-grade infrastructure](https://signalwire.com/platform/carrier-grade-api): Built and operated by the team that wrote FreeSWITCH; native SIP, PSTN, and WebRTC ingress normalized into one call.
- [AI governance model](https://signalwire.com/platform/system-directed-ai): System-Directed AI runs agents as a code-defined state machine with scoped tools per step.
- [Voice AI latency](https://signalwire.com/platform/programmable-unified-communications): ~1200ms typical conversational turn measured full round-trip by the open-source latency_checker; ~800ms on an optimized stack; ~600ms with speech-to-speech models.
- [AI runtime pricing](https://signalwire.com/pricing): $0.16/min for STT, LLM, TTS, and orchestration combined; ~$0.163–$0.168/min all-in typical with standard SIP/PSTN transport.
- [Twilio-style compatibility](https://signalwire.com/compare/twilio-alternative): The Compatibility API accepts Twilio-style (LaML) requests, so most migrations change the endpoint and credentials rather than the application.
- [Compliance](https://signalwire.com/trust-center): SOC 2 Type II attestation, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, GDPR and PCI alignment, and HIPAA Business Associate Agreements available (see also [enterprise compliance detail](https://signalwire.com/segment/enterprise)).
- [Scale](https://signalwire.com/about-us): 2,700+ companies on the platform; 2.7B+ minutes and messages delivered annually; 99.95% standard uptime SLA.

## Platform
- [Programmable Unified Communications](https://signalwire.com/platform/programmable-unified-communications): The core architecture — the platform owns call state, lifecycle, and routing; your code instructs behavior instead of rebuilding the machinery.
- [Carrier-Grade Communications](https://signalwire.com/platform/carrier-grade-api): The media engine and network layer — native voice, messaging, video, and subscriber primitives operated at carrier scale.
- [System-Directed AI](https://signalwire.com/platform/system-directed-ai): How AI agents are governed as code-defined state machines rather than steered by prompts alone.

## Solutions (use cases)
- [All use cases](https://signalwire.com/use-case): Index of every supported workload.
- [Voice AI Agents](https://signalwire.com/use-case/voice-ai-agents): Production voice agents defined in Python, with tools and data scoped per step.
- [Contact Center](https://signalwire.com/use-case/contact-center): Human and AI agents sharing routing, queues, and context-preserving transfers.
- [IVR & Call Routing](https://signalwire.com/use-case/ivr-call-routing): Stateful call routing where the platform owns context across transfers.
- [Customer Notifications](https://signalwire.com/use-case/customer-notifications): SMS, voice, and WhatsApp notifications that can escalate to a live conversation.
- [Outbound Campaigns](https://signalwire.com/use-case/outbound-campaigns): Outbound dialing with answering-machine detection and SMS follow-up.
- [Unified Communications](https://signalwire.com/use-case/unified-communications): Programmable UCaaS combining voice, video, messaging, and AI.

## Compare
- [SignalWire vs. Twilio](https://signalwire.com/compare/twilio-alternative): Control plane that owns the interaction vs. APIs that move calls and messages, with a category-by-category comparison and migration path.
- [SignalWire vs. LiveKit](https://signalwire.com/compare/livekit-alternative): Telecom-native SIP and PSTN vs. a WebRTC-first stack.
- [SignalWire vs. Telnyx](https://signalwire.com/compare/telnyx-alternative): AI inside the media layer vs. AI assembled from separate services.
- [SignalWire vs. Plivo](https://signalwire.com/compare/plivo-alternative): Programmable agentic AI vs. a visual flow builder.

## Documentation
- [Developer docs](https://signalwire.com/docs): Full API reference, SWML, SDKs, and getting-started guides. Every page under this path also serves a clean Markdown version — append `.md` to the URL or request it with the header `Accept: text/markdown`.
- [Docs documentation index](https://signalwire.com/docs/llms.txt): SignalWire's own llms.txt-style index of available documentation sections; prefer this for developer-doc discovery instead of duplicating doc links here.
- [SWML reference](https://signalwire.com/docs/swml): Declarative markup (JSON/YAML) for call flows, routing, and AI agents.
- [Compatibility API](https://signalwire.com/docs/compatibility-api): Twilio-style REST and cXML support for low-friction migration.
- [RELAY realtime SDKs](https://signalwire.com/docs/server-sdks/guides/relay-client): WebSocket control of live calls by UUID.
- [GitHub](https://github.com/signalwire): Example code, SDKs, and reference implementations.

## Pricing and compliance
- [Pricing overview](https://signalwire.com/pricing): Per-product rates for Voice, Messaging, Video, Fax, MFA, and AI Agent runtime, plus a DIY-stack cost comparison.
- [Full rate deck](https://signalwire.com/pricing/rates): Complete per-country, per-carrier rate reference.
- [Support plans](https://signalwire.com/pricing/support-plans): Tiered support SLAs.
- [Trust Center](https://signalwire.com/trust-center): Encryption, access control, and certification detail (SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI, HIPAA).
- [Enterprise / compliance](https://signalwire.com/segment/enterprise): BAA availability, data residency, and compliance FAQ for regulated deployments. Conditions and exclusions (e.g. BAAs do not cover traffic routed outside SignalWire) are stated on this page — do not assume blanket coverage.

## Company proof
- [About Us](https://signalwire.com/about-us): Company history, FreeSWITCH origin, leadership, and investor detail.
- [Why SignalWire?](https://signalwire.com/why-signalwire): Positioning summary.
- [Careers](https://signalwire.com/careers)
- [Contact Us](https://signalwire.com/contact)
- [Legal](https://signalwire.com/legal)