Limitations in Sending SMS Messages to Indian Mobile Numbers
The SMS messages which are sent to mobile phones in India from SMS Gateway Center would have various limitations and requirements due to Indian Government rules and regulations. To learn the difference between each type of SMS message, and what their limitations are, please continue reading.
SMS Message Types in India
The SMS messages sent by SMS Gateway Center in India are classified in one of two categories:
Promotional: Promotional SMS messages include marketing messages, advertisements, or anything else that is not considered ‘Transactional‘.
Transactional SMS: Sending order related alerts, OTP (ONE TIME PASSWORD) SMS or 2FA (TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION) alerts, banking notifications, etc.
Given below are the types of Indian SMS Types in brief:-
Promotional SMS
All SMS messages that are sent through SMS Gateway Center mobile numbers are categorized as Promotional by default and the following criteria should be met:-
Promotional SMS cannot be sent to any mobile number in India’s which has ‘Do Not Call’ (DND) registry.
If you are not able to send messages to an Indian mobile number, please ensure that if the number is on the ‘National Do Not Call’ (DND) Registry. If the owner wishes to start receiving SMS messages from the SMS Gateway Center they can update the DND settings by following the instructions on the TRAI website.
The sending SMS messages header are masked to the format “YY-999999“.
The sending mobile numbers are altered before Promotional SMS messages are delivered to recipients. The recipients usually see a random masked sender ID which will be the two at the front to signify the provider and area code by dynamic numeric, instead of your mobile number as shown above. Due to a change in the sender ID, recipients are unable to send a reply to your delivered SMS message, so SMS messaging in India is 1-way only.
Messages are only delivered between the hours of 9 A.M and 9 P.M local Indian time.
You cannot deliver more than one message every 20 minutes from the same Sender ID to the same destination mobile number with the same message body.
This is done to avoid potential SMS flooding. Consider getting multiple
Transactional SMS
If you want your SMS message to be classified as ‘Transactional’, the following criteria should meet:-
Sending order related alerts, OTP (ONE TIME PASSWORD) SMS or 2FA (TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION) alerts, banking notifications etc which will be directly related to a business interaction between the customer and service.
The sending SMS messages header are masked to the format “YY-ZZZZZZ“.
The sending mobile numbers are altered before SMS messages are delivered to recipients. The recipients usually see a random masked sender ID which will be the two at the front to signify the provider and area code, instead of your mobile number as shown above. Due to a change in the sender ID, recipients are unable to send a reply to your delivered SMS message, so SMS messaging in India is 1-way only.
SMS Messages must also use a pre-registered white listed SMS message template, which has implemented in March 2019. The templates you provide us must be messages sent to India from your SMS Gateway Center account IO. The infringement of this rule may result in severe penalties, including termination and blocking of your registered Sender ID by SMS Gateway Center or penalty passed on to you by the operators.
SMS Messages must deliver from a pre-approved alphanumeric sender ID.
Additionally, transactional SMS messages do not have the same limitations as Promotional messages. Transactional SMS messages could be delivered to the DND registered customers and can be received by end-users 24/7.
Transactional SMS Users must request to pre-approve an alphanumeric sender ID directly with SMS Gateway Center. To begin your pre-approval, please submit the following document/information to get approval from SMS Gateway Center and the Operators.
- Company Name.
- Company Website.
- Company Address.
- Your company’s headquarters are located in India or Out-Of-India.
- Your E-mail address.
- Account Username.
- A brief description of sender IDs should be provided stating the reason for choosing.
- SMS Templates need to be approved by
SMS Gateway Center and the operators. You should explain the use case so that operators shall approve. - Please confirm that this use case will apply to all messages sent for specific sender names.
- The promotional account cannot be clubbed with the transactional account. Hence you need to have 2 different accounts for such types of messages.
Once you have collected this information, please contact our Support team and submit your request.
