What is the World Text US 10DLC service?
10DLC stands for ’10 Digit Long Code’, or otherwise know as ‘Commercial Long Codes’. This is a new carrier approved method of SMS delivery in the United States, designed as a replacement for existing long code services, shared short code services, and a cheaper, quicker method than dedicated short codes.
Dedicated US Short Codes
Historically in North America the only way to successfully delivery large volumes of SMS, and at high speed, while retaining a static number as the source address (sender ID), was via dedicated short codes. These are relatively costly and take quite some time to be fully setup, as such they were often only setup by larger brands that were happy with the cost and happy to wait for them to be approved by the carriers.
US Long Codes
Since then over the years, long codes have been used by everyone else needing to send SMS in North America, but these come with some restrictions that can limit the functionality. These include throughput speed, daily and monthly volumes, content filtering, encoding, concatenation and delivery receipts. Although not perfect, existing long codes have been used successfully by many, and ways to make them fit needs have been developed to help avoid falling foul of any possible carrier enforced restrictions and limitations.
Shared US Short Codes
The only alternative to this for some were US shared short codes. However, again it was easy to fall foul of the carriers using these, namely because these short codes were never intended to be used for more than one purpose. This resulted in the potential of other users abusing the short code, leading to it being blocked by carriers. The first you would know is when your SMS were not being delivered, or your brand being associated with other companies SMS.
The Death of US Shared Short Code SMS
It has been announced that one of the largest US carriers (AT&T) is going to be actively blocking SMS originating from US shared short codes, with it expected that other US carriers will follow.
World Text has never offered or recommended a shared short code service for SMS delivery in the US, but if you so use a shared short code service for SMS delivery in the US we recommend exploring your alternatives as soon as possible, it’s days are numbered!
10DLC Coming Your Way Soon
Commercial Long Codes (10DLC) will be the new carrier approved method for SMS delivery to subscribers in the US. They will allow for high throughput, high speed SMS delivery over a single static number, without the potential limitations of regular long codes, or the cost and long lead-time of dedicated short codes.
World Text will be providing US 10DLC (10 Digit Long Code) to all new and existing clients from 12th May 2019. Currently this will only be for SMS terminating on the Verizon carrier in the US, but again it is expected that other carriers will follow suit.
For more information or to discuss your needs, please contact us.