What is A2P 10DLC?

10DLC, the long-awaited, carrier supported A2P originator, is finally here.

All major US carriers – Verizon, AT&T and New T-Mobile (including Sprint) – are now live with their 10DLC services.

We have agreements in place with them all, making us a one-stop shop for businesses that want to start sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages on 10DLC. 

The A2P SMS messaging industry has evolved and transforming rapidly. If you are an American business that has relied on shared US short codes and long codes to communicate with your, it’s time to embrace this transformation.

So, here’s an update – including everything we’re able to share – based on our ongoing conversations with all the major US carriers.

We’ll discuss what A2P 10DLC is, where it sits in the market, why people should care about it, and what they should do next.

There’s a lot of information to navigate. But our team at Infobip can help businesses find new ways to pivot and thrive in this changing SMS environment. In the meantime, here is an in-depth overview into:

A2P 10DLC (10-digit long code) has been specially designed and sanctioned for business messaging. It offers simplicity, stability, delivery reliability, and security to businesses and their audiences. It will also support a healthy volume of messaging – though not as high as the hundreds of transactions per second (TPS) short codes offer.

The US long codes widely used by businesses in previous years were only ever designed for person-to-person (P2P) communications. They have low volume throughout and lack desirable security standards. Carriers have always considered them to be an unsanctioned SMS route. For this reason, they were subject to blocking and throttling.

Following the launch of A2P 10DLC, carriers are demanding that traffic on shared codes is migrated to dedicated 10DLCs or short codes. To carriers, shared short codes represent a high spam risk. The fact that many businesses share the same short code makes them difficult to police.

T-Mobile and AT&T now prohibit shared short codes in their updated codes of conduct. There will be very few exceptions – even for same vertical shared codes. Cases will be treated on a case-by-case basis with an in-depth carrier review before approval.

Moving to a dedicated short code will be one option for businesses that find themselves unable to use shared ones. The monthly costs are higher, but dedicated short codes enjoy higher carrier support, and increased conversion potential for campaigns. They are the clear choice for brands who message large audiences.

Another option for companies will be to move to A2P 10DLC. These numbers will have lower monthly costs, be sanctioned by the carrier networks, and are much faster to provision.

It’s important to note all the Tier-1 carriers have a vested interest in keeping this route spam free and thereby reducing consumer harm.

Verizon achieves this using spam and smishing filters. It does not use vetting scores to assign throughput but instead allocates TPS (transaction per second) in the same way as it does for short codes. This allows you to expect healthy TPS rates.

As part of the 10DLC campaign registration process, AT&T gives each campaign a “message class”. A certain amount of throughput is expected to be assigned to each class. If you need more throughput, you might be given the opportunity to go through a vetting process with a verified independent agency. A good trust score from them could lead to higher throughput.

T-Mobile (Sprint) allocates TPS at the brand level – as a daily limit. If you have more than one campaign running, your daily quota is split across those campaigns. There are two options when it comes to receiving your daily messaging quota.

The first option is through default vetting in two tiers. The high-performance is for public companies and requires a vetting score of 75 or higher. This will earn you a daily quota of 200,000 messages. The low-performance tier (with a vetting score of 0–24) will earn a daily quota of 2,000 messages.

Any brand that doesn’t fit one of the above tiers, or that wants to improve their vetting score, will need to be third-party vetted. There are four buckets in this category for vetting scores:

An example of an SMS use case likely to be deemed low-risk would be one that uses A2P 10DLC to send and receive SMS-based two-factor authorization (2FA). That’s because consumers have asked for this traffic, they respond to it, and it’s safe and necessary.

On the other end of the scale would be promotional marketing campaigns by third party affiliates. That’s because there’s a potential for these campaigns to be sent to consumers who may not have been opted into the campaign correctly.

The score you receive could dictate the volume and throughput of messages each carrier allows you to send through their respective networks.

But the big takeaway is: if your campaigns are not in any way spam-like, and your customers want to receive your messages and have been opted in correctly, you’re probably going to be alright.

With our 10DLC service you can view your entire inventory of originators (short codes, long codes, alphanumeric) – as well as provision and configure your 10DLC numbers.

Our Numbers and Short Codes solution lets you do everything you need to send and receive messages via 10DLC. This includes:

The other messaging option available for businesses is to communicate with customers via a text-enabled toll-free number.

This is a service that allows businesses to “text enable” existing toll-free phone numbers, so they have one number customers can either text or call them on.

It’s important to note, that although “toll free” numbers are free for a consumer to call (ie the business pays the consumer cost), it is not free to text a “text-enabled toll-free number”. The consumer would have a SMS standard fee deducted from either the limited or unlimited text plan they have with their respective carrier.

These TETF numbers have a high throughput (though not quite as high as short codes) and are secure and approved for business use.

Like 10DLC, they are another messaging option for businesses that want to start messaging quickly and easily without the higher cost sometimes associated with short codes.

At Infobip, we’re here to help our customers and partners pivot and move forward as changes in the market take effect.

We provide the tools, solutions, strategic advice, and network access you need, while leveraging our close relationships with all the major US carriers to represent your interests.

If you need any help or advice, just drop us a line. Or if you’re an existing customer or partner get in touch with your account manager any time.