Bridging the gap with A2P 10DLC

Bridging the gap with A2P 10DLC

At Twilio, SMS is in our DNA. For over a decade, we’ve had a relentless focus on making it easy for developers to sign up, buy a phone number, and send their first message in a matter of minutes. Some of the early Twilio customers, like Uber and AirBnB, have become the largest brands in the world. And today, we are pioneering a global initiative to help one billion people get the Covid-19 vaccine.

With 90% of texts being opened within the first three minutes, it’s no surprise that SMS has evolved from a nice-to-have to an essential component of any company’s customer engagement efforts, especially during the current global pandemic.

But those 10-digit long codes (10DLC) that make it so easy to get started quickly were only intended to support consumer messaging, like me texting you. When we use those same routes for business messaging, there are some major limitations around identity and throughput. As business messaging has scaled exponentially, the ecosystem has also encountered a steady rise in spam and unwanted messaging. We are coming together with the ecosystem to close this gap while providing businesses the verification and throughput they need to reliably reach their consumers at scale.

In 2021, we will see the U.S. business messaging ecosystem finalize a years-long industry transition for local 10-digit long codes. This transition, commonly referred to as A2P 10DLC, upgrades the systems we use to send your messages via 10-digit long codes while ensuring consumers are receiving the messages they want and expect. This is a positive shift bringing the benefits of a verified ecosystem with the same local, recognizable number businesses have rooted into their strategies. What is so great for developers is that these capabilities were previously out of reach. Short Codes have a much higher throughput but they are expensive if you are a developer and don't send that many messages. Those number types also have higher deliverability rates because businesses have to go through a verification process to use them. Put simply, A2P 10DLC bridges the gap to keeping a local identity, increasing throughput, and improving deliverability.

We recognize that getting to this overall better experience requires some change from everyone. I want to reassure you that behind the scenes, Twilio is working with our carrier partners daily to actively advocate for developers and businesses that are sending legitimate and wanted messages to their consumers. I also want to reassure you that our carrier partners are extremely receptive and supportive of your needs and together we will make sure that no developer, business, agency, non-profit, ISV or simply anyone is left behind in this transition.

Every developer and every business building on top of Twilio will have a unique experience and as this transition is happening, we're here to support you. Specifically:

• We acknowledge A2P 10DLC registration introduces new processes and fees. Our priority is to ensure simplification of activities that you need to take, and to provide a streamlined registration process. We are working with our carrier partners every day to properly address these topics.
• Over the coming weeks, we will be focused on a phased onboarding approach while also finalizing registration details needed for non-US customers, government entities, and those businesses that require Special Use Case designation. Special Use Cases include Conversational, Charity, Social Engagement, Political, Emergency Services, Agents/franchises/local branches, and specific Carrier Exemptions.

If you are a customer, please look out for communications coming from our team. If you need more information, check out our FAQs.

We thank you all for your patience as we make this great channel even better for your business. More to come...

Simon Khalaf is the SVP and GM of Messaging at Twilio.