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The carriers are making changes to the messaging ecosystem to prevent unwanted spam messages from being sent to consumers. They also want to enable brands to send targeted messages to specific audiences via verified phone numbers.
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A new messaging standard introduced by U.S. mobile carriers, that stands for “10-digit long code”. Mobile carriers are introducing new restrictions that require communication between you (a business) and your recipients (your constituents, e.g. staff, students, employees, visitors, guests, residents) to take place over unique, sender-identifiable 10-digit long codes. This only applies to operational messaging, not emergency SMS messaging.
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Operational messaging does not threaten life, health and/or property at time of sending. Messages may require urgent action, but do not carry sufficient risk to categorize as an emergency. Examples include:
- Marketing messages
- Event updates
- Thank you messages
- Forecasts and weather notifications
- Temporary road closures
- Staffing alerts for most non-public safety
- Class cancellations
- Reminders such as parking bans, street sweeping, appointments or deadlines, etc.
Emergency messaging poses an immediate threat to life, health, and/or property at time of sending. Messages require urgent action to respond to, lessen or avert potential impacts. Examples include:
- Active shooter/active assailant
- Shelter-in-place
- All-clear
- Weather warnings
- COVID-related warnings
- Office or campus closures
- Post-disaster assistance information
- Staffing alerts in public safety or healthcare
- Clery act required messages
- Critical cybersecurity breach alerts
- Time-sensitive, critical operational incidents such as power outages or equipment failures
- Drills or test messages that simulate an emergency
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10DLC is the carrier-provided technology that is being used to deliver operational/non-emergency messages. Organizations must be compliant to 10DLC in order to send operational messages.
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A long code is a standard 10-digit phone number used to send SMS messages, or to send and receive voice calls. This is how messages will be sent in the future.
A short code is a 5 or 6-digit number, similar to a phone number, used by a company to send or receive text messages. This is mostly how messages are sent today, but will need to be transferred to a long code.
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Brand – Business Entity that must register in order to send messages to consumers, identified by Tax ID (EIN).
Campaign – Purpose of the messaging for different use cases, e.g. password authentication, marketing, informational, IT, etc. Each campaign is assigned a unique 10DLC phone number to send/receive messages.
A2P – Application-to-person messaging – process of sending mobile messages from a business application to a mobile user (e.g. any Rave message).
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All major US carriers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, are participating.
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Carriers have introduced this set of standards and registration process to increase spam protection by making message senders more identifiable. Businesses will need to register their “brand” and “campaigns” to increase transparency around who is sending messages to mobile phone subscribers.
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- Need to comply with 10DLC brand and campaign registration requirements
- Need to designate operational vs. emergency messages
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- Improved deliverability
- Text from a recognized local area code/number
- Text and call from the same number
- Further protection from spam
- Unique branding opportunity
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10DLC is currently live and some providers are handling traffic today. Rave will begin migrating operational messaging traffic to 10DLC in late 2021. Rave customers will receive an ongoing series of email communications to provide updates on 10DLC registration and how to take advantage of operational messaging.
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Rave customers do not need to register directly for 10DLC numbers with the carriers – we are working to create tools that will help facilitate brand and campaign registration, setup and messaging. We recommend evaluating your current messaging to determine the number of messages you send that would be defined as “operational” vs. “emergency”.
