The U.S. telecommunications industry is making efforts to protect consumers and improve the delivery of legitimate text messages. To that end, the industry players developed certain standards for organizations sending Application-to-Person messages to U.S. phone numbers.
What is A2P 10 DLC?
It stands for Application-to-Person (A2P) type messaging sent via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers. An organization must register with the TCR any 10DLC phone number that it is using for SMS messaging conversations and campaigns.
This article answers frequently asked questions about A2P 10DLC and outlines the registration process for your company.
Who is this relevant to?
⚠️ This is relevant for all organizations that send SMS messages to numbers in the U.S. using Aircall phone numbers because U.S. carriers consider all messages that go through professional solutions like Aircall to be “Application-to-Person” or A2P.
What is the 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 to establish common standards for A2P 10DLC messaging.
What do I need to do?
If you send text messages to U.S. phone numbers, you will need to fill out the form below.
>> Start your A2P 10DLC Standard registration <<
You can also directly find the form on support.aircall.io by submitting a request under “Number Porting, Purchasing and Compliance” reason then select “A2P10DLC SMS Registration (USA/CA Only)”.
Aircall strongly advises all customers using SMS text messaging to get aligned with A2P10DLC as soon as possible.
Note: If you do not send text messages to U.S. numbers, you do not need to do anything.
Will my organization be affected by these changes?
All organizations that send SMS to U.S. numbers are affected by these new industry rules.
What happens if I don’t register?
Your message traffic will be subject to heavier carrier filtering and may incur increased per-message carrier fees. Carriers have communicated that they may block all unregistered traffic at some point. In short, your messages might not be received.
How does the registration work?
There are 3 parts to A2P10DLC Standard registration:
Step 1: Brand & Campaign registration
- Provide basic company information to register your “Brand.” This information should exactly match the business information associated with your EIN listing (for US companies).
- Register your “Campaign.” The campaign is meant to describe the type of messages you send. Learn more about the campaign types here.
Step 2: Wait for the campaign to be vetted
After Brand and Campaign creation, the carriers will manually review the information and validate or refuse the campaign. This can take the carriers up to 30 business days to validate.
Step 3: Associate the numbers
- Provide the list of your geographic numbers to be registered to the campaign you have decided to register.
How is Aircall helping?
Aircall will be your single point of contact to register your campaigns. You do not need to be in contact with the TCR directly. Aircall provides a form to fill in all the information in one go, and automatically updates your porting ticket to let you know at what step of the process you are.
Is there a cost associated with A2P 10DLC registration?
When creating the Brand & Campaign, The Campaign Registry starts charging fees to Aircall based on the type of campaign you created. Aircall will adapt its billing to pass through these fees in customer invoices. For full details about cost, please consult this article.
How can I register?
For more information on completing the necessary form, please visit: A2P10DLC Form - Field Details
How long will it take for a campaign to be approved?
The whole process can take up to 30 days.
The first step, Brand & Campaign registration, is a rapid process with the TCR and Aircall will update your ticket with us automatically to inform you of the success within the day.
Then the campaign enters the second step with the vetting process by carriers, which usually takes 5 open days. As the volume of registration has been high, the process can be delayed and take up to 30 open days.
Aircall is directly connected to the TCR to get the information about the vetting result and will automatically update the ticket as soon as it is done.
After the campaign vetting process, Aircall will register the numbers, and it should be approved within the day.
Are my numbers pre-approved when the registration process is still pending?
No, while the campaign is not yet vetted by the carriers, the numbers cannot be registered. Only after completion of the whole process the numbers will be officially registered and allowed to send SMS.
What about the Toll-Free numbers?
Toll-free numbers are not covered by the A2P10DLC rules. You will need to follow a different process to verify Toll-Free US/Canada numbers for messaging compliance. We strongly recommend registering your toll-free numbers at the same time, as the information required is quite similar.
Messaging Compliance for Toll-Free US/Canada Numbers
What about numbers that are configured to send SMS through an external partner?
If your number is configured to send SMS with Heymarket, Sakari, or Textline, please contact them directly as the campaign registration process needs to be initiated by them.
What do I have to do if I want to add new phone numbers to an already registered campaign?
Use the form here to edit the list of numbers to be associated with your campaign under “Number Porting, Purchasing and Compliance” reason, then select “A2P10DLC SMS Registration (USA/CA Only)”, and finally select “Add Number to Existing SMS A2P10DLC Campaign”.
I have several messaging use cases to account for, how should I register?
You have two options:
You can register a “mixed” or “low volume” use case and then indicate the different use cases you need as sub-use cases. The benefit is that it allows you to add all your numbers to a single campaign. The disadvantage is that the throughput is lower: it allows you to send around 1 SMS per second per major carrier.
This is the option we recommend for Aircall customers, as high throughput is very specific to mass texting.
The other option is to register one campaign for each use case such as one for “customer care” and one for “marketing”, using the form several times.
The benefit is that it provides higher throughput.
The disadvantage is that those campaigns may have a higher cost and the one-time fees will be added up. Please note that one number can only be associated with one campaign, so your numbers will have to be dedicated to only one use case.
Aircall is providing a P2P SMS feature, why would I need to register for A2P 10DLC?
This is relevant for all organizations that send SMS messages to numbers in the U.S. using Aircall phone numbers because U.S. carriers consider all messages that go through professional solutions like Aircall to be “Application-to-Person” or A2P.
I’m on a trial account; can I still start the A2P 10DLC registration?
No, trial accounts are not eligible for the A2P 10DLC registration. Since the registration involves additional costs, trial accounts cannot start the registration process.
As an alternative you can purchase a Toll Free number and test the sms feature with Toll-free registration
If I have a question, who do I have to contact?
Please make sure to contact your Customer Success Manager or our Porting Team.