SignalWire
PROGRAMMABLE UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

The control plane for voice, video, messaging, and agents.

SignalWire's platform, Call Fabric, runs 2.7 billion interactions a year on one substrate. Your SIP trunks, WhatsApp templates, conference rooms, and AI agents share one state model, one set of logs, one invoice.

Ten SDK languages. Four interfaces. One platform, built by the FreeSWITCH team.

Call FabricCONTROL PLANEone UUID per interactionphone numbersE.164AI agentsSWAIGconference roomsWebRTC + SIPSIP endpointstrunks + UAsSWML scriptsdeclarativesubscribersidentities
2,000+
Customers
2.7B
Minutes + messages / yr
15+ yrs
FreeSWITCH heritage
10
SDK languages
THE PLATFORM / WHAT IT DOES

Five surfaces.
One addressable system.

Carrier-grade voice, messaging at 10DLC scale, WebRTC rooms, AI agents, and the infrastructure underneath all of it. Each capability runs natively in the same substrate and answers to the same control plane.

VOICE
  • SIP Trunking
    Licensed carrier, global PSTN origination and termination.
  • Call Control
    Dial, bridge, transfer, hold, park, record, whisper.
  • Conferencing
    Moderated, ad-hoc, SIP-to-WebRTC bridges, recording.
  • Queues + IVR
    Skill-based routing, callbacks, native IVRs.
MESSAGING
  • SMS / MMS
    Two-way, long-codes, toll-free, 10DLC registration.
  • WhatsApp Business
    Templated + conversational, shared inbox.
  • Unified API
    One send primitive across SMS, MMS, WhatsApp.
VIDEO
  • Programmable Rooms
    WebRTC rooms with server-driven layout and moderation.
  • Broadcast
    Low-latency ingest and replay with recording.
AI AGENTS
  • AI Kernel
    STT + LLM + TTS or native speech-to-speech, in the media path.
  • System-Directed AI
    Step-based state machines, scoped prompts, scoped tools.
  • Tool Orchestration
    SWAIG functions; webhook, inline, or RPC back to another call.
INFRASTRUCTURE
  • Recording + Transcription
    Stereo recording, async and streaming transcription.
  • Payments
    PCI-compliant capture inside the call without human exposure.
  • Fax
    T.38 and bypass, all inbound and outbound.
  • Observability
    Structured event streams, per-turn timing, tool-call traces.
One substrate. One state model. One invoice. 2.7 billion minutes and messages a year.
ARCHITECTURE / THREE LEGS

Most voice platforms are middleware.
SignalWire owns the substrate.

“Close to the audio” is one leg. Alone, it doesn't hold. The value comes from three things composing: the kernel inside the media path, a control plane that owns state, and a programmable surface that lets developers instruct any of it.

01·MEDIA ENGINE

Substrate

Voice, video, AI orchestration, conferencing, recording, queuing, messaging, and fax all run as native capabilities in one real-time substrate, powered by the FreeSWITCH lineage.

  • AI kernel embedded in the media path
  • Orchestration starts at the audio frame
  • STT + LLM + TTS or native speech-to-speech
02·SYSTEM OF RECORD

Control Plane

The platform owns interaction state. Protocol, transfer history, tool-call results, context: it all lives in one place and moves with the call. No middleware reconstructing reality from webhook events.

  • PSTN, SIP, WebRTC, WhatsApp normalized
  • Addressable resources: numbers, agents, queues, endpoints
  • One state model across the call lifecycle
03·DEVELOPER SURFACE

Programmability

Four interfaces, one substrate. Describe the call declaratively, take real-time control, or drive everything from code in ten languages. SDKs produce the call markup. A persistent WebSocket executes live. REST administers.

  • Call markup: 50+ declarative methods
  • Persistent WebSocket for live control
  • SDKs in Python, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, +7
The three compose as one interaction. This is what “PUC” names.
CALL FABRIC / INTERFACES

One call.
Four ways to program it.

Declare the flow in a call markup (SWML). Write the agent pattern in a language you like. Take live control over a WebSocket. Administer by UUID over REST. The substrate underneath is the same regardless of which door you walked through.

ADDRESSABLE RESOURCES INSIDE CALL FABRIC
phone numbersSIP endpointsAI agentsSWML scriptsconference roomssubscribersqueues

Resources compose: a number routes to an agent, which transfers to a conference, which bridges to a SIP endpoint: one interaction, one state object, one UUID.

from signalwire_agents import AgentBase

class ReceptionAgent(AgentBase):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__(name="reception", route="/")
        self.prompt_add_section(
            "Role",
            "You answer the phone for Gardener & Sons. "
            "Book appointments, transfer urgent calls to dispatch."
        )
        self.define_tool(
            name="book_appointment",
            description="Reserve a slot on the schedule.",
            parameters={"date": "string", "window": "string"},
            handler=self.schedule_booking,
        )

    def schedule_booking(self, args, raw):
        slot = calendar.reserve(args["date"], args["window"])
        return self.swml_response({"say": f"Booked for {slot}."})

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ReceptionAgent().run()
python reception.pyagent ready · listening on SIP + PSTN + WebRTC
SWMLdeclarative

JSON or YAML: describe what should happen. 50+ methods.

RELAYreal-time

Persistent WebSocket. Inject prompts, transfer, bridge, record.

SDKcode

Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, C#, Rust, Ruby, PHP, Perl, C++.

RESTadmin

Provisioning, config, and active-call control by UUID.

AI CAPSTONE / SYSTEM-DIRECTED

The model handles language.
Your code handles truth.

SignalWire shipped real-time WebSocket call control in 2018, years before AI voice existed as a category. When AI arrived, the kernel plugged into the same substrate as a native capability. So did the governance.

STEP-BASED AUTHORITY
Scoped prompts, scoped tools.

A step-machine governs what the model can see and call at each turn. It cannot reach a tool outside its current step.

INVISIBLE DATA LAYER
Secrets the model never reads.

Card numbers, session IDs, and PII live in a structured layer your tool handlers can read. The model cannot see it.

VALIDATED EXECUTION
Deterministic code ships every action.

Every tool call the AI emits is validated and executed by your code. The model proposes. The system disposes.

Live benchmark, one turn, three stacks
LATENCY_CHECKER / stereo.wav
T+0000ms
SIGNALWIREdecoding…
LIVEKITdecoding…
VAPIdecoding…
0ms
1000ms
2000ms
3000ms
4000ms
5000ms
Δ SignalWire
··ms
Δ LiveKit
··ms
Δ Vapi
··ms
vs slowest
··faster

Stereo recordings of the same appointment-booking flow, one turn each. Envelopes and turn boundaries are analyzed from the actual audio via signalwire/latency_checker. Bolt-on stacks capture server-side; SignalWire captures at the telecom stack. The real-world gap is wider than shown.

BENCHMARK / VARIANCE

A steady 1.10s
beats a spiky 1.75s.

The average latency number is the one everyone publishes. The spread is the one you feel. A tight band means the call is predictably responsive. A wide band means a two-second hole every few turns, where the caller gives up.

Measured end-to-end on stereo recordings, not cherry-picked partial metrics.

Open source: signalwire/latency_checker. Same LLM, same TTS, same external APIs. The orchestration layer is the variable.

LiveKit and Vapi capture server-side (optimistic). SignalWire captures at the telecom stack (realistic). The real-world gap is wider than shown.

TURN LATENCY (s)LOWER · TIGHTER BETTER
1.0
1.4
1.8
2.2
SignalWire (tuned)
Δ 0.09savg 1.10s
1.051.14
LiveKit (tuned)
Δ 0.38savg 1.75s
1.611.99
Vapi
Δ 0.66savg 1.85s
1.452.11
Conversational turn, 3 calls per platformSame LLM + TTS · Mar 2026
BUILD / OR TALK

Start from code,
or bring us your stack.

Sign up, pick a number, point an agent at it. Migrating from Twilio, FreeSWITCH, or legacy CPaaS? Book a technical walkthrough. Both paths land in the same platform.

$0.16 /min
AI agent runtime: STT, LLM, TTS, orchestration.
SIP / PSTN transport billed separately.
FOR DEVELOPERS

Start with a phone number.

Sign up, provision, point an agent at it. No sales call, no quota approval.

FOR SCALE

Map your stack with an engineer.

Migration from Twilio, FreeSWITCH, or a legacy CPaaS. Compliance, carrier, routing reviewed on one call.