Mexico and France Regulatory Compliance Updates

Mexico and France Regulatory Compliance Updates

Worldwide regulatory compliance (RC) requirements for phone numbers continue to increase. These regulations depend on your phone number type, its features, you or your company’s status in the country, and how you use the number. From time to time, the Regulatory Compliance team will provide updates on important regulatory changes that may impact our customers.

Today’s updates concern Mexico and France.

Mexico: Mobile Dialing

As of August 3, 2019, the way you dial mobile numbers in Mexico has changed. If you use Mexican numbers, this change may require you to make changes to your infrastructure dial plans and/or your Twilio application.

Previously, you dialed Mexican mobile numbers by using the country code (+52), then +1, and then the 10-digit phone number. The Mexican Telecommunications Regulator (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones or IFT) eliminated the requirement for the +1 so you can now dial simply by using the country code plus the 10-digit phone number. There is a 30-day grace period during which calls including the “1” prefix will continue to complete; however, after that period ends, such calls will fail.

The chart below illustrates these changes (in Spanish):

France: Outbound Traffic Limitations

The French regulator, Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes (ARCEP), provided new requirements related to the use of numbers as caller (or message sender) identification. As of August 1, 2019, numbers used as caller ID need to respect the utilization and territoriality rules described below.

1.    Utilization Rules

The following rules apply to any number used as an identification number:

• The number shall allow the recipient of the call or message to contact the caller (or message sender).
• When another entity uses a number you’ve provisioned from Twilio (for example, if you’ve outsourced a client service number to a call center based outside of France), you must grant the entity authorization to use the number.

The following changes may be necessary to comply with this rule:

2.    Territoriality Rules

Where the ID of the caller/message sender is a non-geographic or geographic number, final users located outside of France cannot send calls or SMS/MMS or go through an international interconnection. There’s an exception if you’re able to guarantee the utilization rules (above) are respected for each call and each individual message.

More Information on Regulatory Compliance Requirements

We’ve catalogued Twilio’s RC requirements for you here, and created a helpful free training that walks you through mapping your numbers to RC documentation here.

If you think the above regulatory changes may apply to you and you need assistance with any changes to how you use Twilio today, please don’t hesitate to contact Twilio Customer Support.