Introduction to 10DLC
The new industry standard for A2P Long Code Messaging is 10DLC.
What is 10DLC?
10DLC stands for a 10 Digit Long Code. It is the standard for A2P messaging in the US and applies to all messaging over 10-digit geographic phone numbers. As A2P messaging continues to increase year-over-year, carriers are focused on protecting consumers while ensuring good actors have access to the resources they need to engage with customers. 10DLC is expected to provide higher messaging throughput and better deliverability of messages.
How Does 10DLC Affect You?
All your long code message-enabled numbers with Flowroute will be treated as 10DLC numbers. The impact of 10DLC falls into two categories: Carrier Fees and Registration Requirements.
Registration Requirements
Register Your Brand: Customers will be required to register their brand/business to continue sending messages.
Register Your Campaign: After registering your brand, you’ll need to create one or more campaigns based on use cases for your A2P messaging. This will require selecting a use case, providing a description, and including sample messages for each campaign.
Associate Numbers to Your Campaign: Finally, you’ll need to specify which numbers are associated with each campaign.
Associated Carrier Fees
Carrier fees are charged by wireless carriers for messages terminated to and/or originating from their numbers; these fees are passed through to customers.
The most up-to-date carrier fees and surcharges can be found here.
How: With the rollout of 10DLC, carriers are charging a fee per message for both SMS and MMS messages. If you are sending messages, you will not have to do anything differently. The carrier surcharges will be deducted from the available balance on your account.
Why: The carrier surcharge helps carriers monitor and protect customers from SPAM messages. It comes from an agreement among SMS providers to prevent overlooked spam messages from reaching their customers. The fee also helps create a more stable SMS and MMS network as the technology improves.
The cost is determined by the carrier's set cost, which varies by terminating carrier, cost of operation, and available bandwidth.
What: The carrier surcharge fee is now an industry standard. The carrier fee goes directly to the carriers for the upkeep of emerging technologies and the continuing stability of the network. The carrier fee charge is managed by The Campaign Register (TCR), which works as the database to verify that an SMS or MMS user is not sending messages that are considered spam.
Where: You will encounter this carrier surcharge fee when you send any outbound SMS or MMS messages to your customer’s mobile phone numbers. This carrier fee is added to the cost by the carrier and is applied per message sent. You will see it only on outbound SMS or MMS and nowhere else in the Flowroute ecosystem.