A2P 10DLC Registration

The massive changes are coming for SMS/MMS campaigns as part of the US telecom industry efforts to protect consumers from spam. The most important one would be A2P 10DLC registration.

What is A2P 10DLC?

A2P 10DLC is a system that allows businesses to send Application-to-Person (A2P) type messaging via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers.

The point is, all messages sent by a business are considered A2P, even if the business is a sole proprietorship. The three largest US Carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile/Sprint and Verizon) currently require all businesses to undergo the A2P 10DLC registration with TCR, which will be associated with their local phone numbers.

What is TCR?

The Campaign Registry (TCR) is the authority that handles the registration of A2P 10DLC messaging campaigns. Its mission is to provide a registration service by working with carriers, messaging companies, and industry partners. Its goal is to establish common standards for A2P 10DLC messaging.

Why register?

In July 2023, US carriers started blocking messages sent to US phone numbers from business numbers that aren't associated with a registered campaign & brand. The blocking will gradually increase until all unregistered SMS traffic is fully stopped after September 1, 2023.

In addition to the growing restrictions, carriers are also raising the fees on unregistered SMS traffic.

Does A2P 10DLC apply to toll-free numbers?

Toll-free numbers in the USA are not affected by these changes. However, if you're planning to send messages to phone numbers in the United States and Canada, you will need to verify your toll-free numbers through a different process.

How to register?

The A2P 10DLC registration includes 2 parts:

• Brand registration: you declare what your business is;
• Campaign registration: you communicate what kind of messages are included in your SMS campaign.

MightyCall handles both aspects for your business to ensure fast and efficient registration: we created a special form that you need to fill out. Once we receive your submitted form, we will send it to TCR for registration, you won’t have to contact TCR directly.

Are there any costs associated with registration?

Yes, there are TCR registration fees that are collected by MightyCall.

How is my brand registered?

All information provided in the form will be shared with carriers and TCR for the purpose of brand and messaging campaign registration. Once done, your company name, address and EIN will be verified against multiple databases. As a result, it will have a Verified or Unverified status.

If verified, your brand will be assigned a Trust Score between 0 and 100. This rating influences the maximum message throughput that will be allocated to each of your campaign use cases.

What types of campaigns are there?

There are two main types of messaging campaigns: Standard & Special:

Standard types include 2FA, Account Notification, Customer Care, Delivery Notification, Fraud Alert Messaging, Higher Education, Marketing, Polling & Voting, Public Service Announcement, Security Alert.

Special types, such as Charity, Emergency, Political, Social, Sweepstake, Agents & Franchises, K-12 Education are sensitive or critical in nature and, as a result, may require vetting or MNO (Mobile Network Operators) approval before they can be registered.

What is safe to send and what is prohibited?

Safe to send are the matters that are not present on the prohibited messaging topics list:

• Illegal, harmful, unwanted, inappropriate, objectionable content;

  Criminal misinformation;

  Anything that is illegal in the jurisdiction where the message recipient lives. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • Cannabis;
  • Prescription medication that cannot legally be sold over-the-counter;
• Alcohol, firearms, gambling, tobacco, or other adult content;
• Hate speech, harassment, exploitative, abusive speech;
• Fraudulent messages;
• Malicious content, such as malware or viruses;
• Any content that is designed to intentionally evade filters or detection systems. This includes intentionally misspelled words or non-standard opt-out phrases which have been specifically created with the intent to evade these mechanisms.

Penalties in case of violations

There are heavy penalties that will be passed on for any content violations. Some examples include the following: