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A2P 10DLC and Toll Free Messaging

Big changes are happening in the SMS Industry. These changes are precipitated by a significant increase in spam/fraudulent SMS messages across all cell phone providers.  As a result, the US and Canadian cell phone carriers are implementing new requirements and fees for sending SMS messages on their networks.

If we are providing SMS services to your business, changes must be in place before October 1, 2021 or your service will be affected.

 

 

Background

These are the possible services that are used to send a text using SMS:

  • P2P – Person to person (i.e. sending from your cell to another cell)
  • A2P – Application to Person (i.e. sending from a program to a cell)
  • Toll-Free (TF) A2P – (i.e. using a toll free number to send texts)
  • Short Code – (i.e. 5 digit short codes, note: we do not offer this service)

If you are currently texting through our services, you are using either A2P 10DLC or Toll-Free (TF) A2P texting.

A2P 10DLC refers to a system in the United States that allows businesses to send Application-to-Person (A2P) type messaging via a standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone number such as your business’ main telephone number.

What Is Changing?

In recent months the US and Canadian cell carriers have started adding per message surcharges for all A2P traffic.  Carriers in the US now consider all traffic NOT coming from another cell phone (i.e. traffic coming programmatically) to be A2P.  Here are the current Carrier 10DLC Surcharges.

In addition to these surcharges, starting October 1, 2021 US and Canadian cell carriers are requiring each company or individual sending texts, to register a Brand and a Campaign and associate that information with each phone number used to send SMS messages.  Failure to do so subjects your text to non-delivery and/or additional message surcharge fees.  (Note that this only applies to A2P and NOT to Toll-Free (TF) A2P.)

Brands and Campaigns are registered either through us or directly through The Campaign Registry (TCR).  The TCR can be found at https://campaignregistry.com.  After registration, a valid campaign ID must be associated with each phone number sending texts.

Accordingly, on October 1, 2021, all phone numbers within our network that do not have a valid campaign ID associated with them will be turned off for outbound texting.  This will not in any way affect voice traffic/calls.

What Do I Need To Do?

Please set up a meeting to talk to us and ask any questions that you may have.

For most of our customers, we will send you a form to fill out and return.  That will enable us to set up a Brand and a Campaign within the Campaign Registry (TCR) on your behalf.  The TCR will issue a Campaign ID and  we will apply that Campaign ID to each of your telephone numbers that you use for texting.  In some cases, there is a limit on the number of unique phone numbers per campaign.  We will let you know if you will need to have multiple campaigns for your brand.

If you prefer, you can create your own account at The Campaign Registry and create your own Brands and Campaigns.  You will need to provide us with the Campaign IDs you create so that we can assign them to your phone number(s).

If you send less 3000 messages per day and you have less than 5 numbers, we have an SMB solution to discuss with you.  Most of the fees below will be eliminated if we are successful in automating this process.  Please contact support@inventivelabs.com if you believe that qualify for an SMB Brand or Campaign.

What Are the Costs?

If Voice Elements / Inventive Labs (IVL) sets up your Brand and Campaign:

  • TCR will be charging us the following fees for each Brand and Campaign.  They will be passed through to you on your monthly invoices as they are incurred:
    1. Brand: One-time fee $44 per Brand ($4 + $40 vetting charge)
    2. Campaign ID: Per month charge $10 per Campaign
  • IVL will charge a one-time fee of $100 to set up your Brand and Campaigns with our carriers and assign your Campaign IDs to your existing phone numbers. As you add new numbers in the future, you will be able to add Campaign IDs yourself through our customer portal.

If you set up your own Account at TCR:

  • TCR will charge you directly the one-time sign- up fee of $200, Brand and Vetting charges, and monthly recurring charges for each campaign.
  • IVL will charge a one-time fee of $50 to set up your Brand and Campaigns with our carriers and assign your Campaign IDs to your existing phone numbers. As you add new numbers in the future, you will be able to add Campaign IDs yourself through our customer portal at no additional charge.

In addition to the above charges, effective October 1, 2021 we will be adding to your invoice the Carrier Network Surcharge fees per message that we are paying.  These will be the actual costs and will NOT be marked up.  These are $.0025 for Verizon and about .003-.005 for other carriers.  Click here for details: Carrier 10DLC Surcharges.

These fees will start appearing on your November invoice.

Set Up a Meeting

Get started now by setting up a meeting with us. We look forward to working with you on these important industry changes.   Please use the following link to set up a time with us:

SCHEDULE MEETING