Twilio - Recent Changes

Mar, 5 2021

As the landscape of communication needs has changed for people and organizations alike, Tier-1 Carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have pivoted to adapt. A critical component to their service offerings is the ability to offer consistent SMS delivery and to ensure a safe, opt-in, spam-free environment for SMS customers (organizations and people). As a result of this commitment, a new standard has been created for businesses and organizations that substantiate their identity and confirm their SMS communications objectives are clear. This new standard is known as A2P 10DLC. BEMA is here to offer assistance in moving your organization to a compliant service to meet the requirements in this changing industry!

A2P 10DCL and Twilio

Important Dates

• April 1: Registration in Twilio’s Trust Hub opens

• May 1: AT&T’s new fees are charged directly to the customer.

o Assumption is that Twilio’s new monthly rate for the 10DLC goes up

• June 1: AT&T begins filtering A2P texts (if non-registered) potentially blocking them

Costs

Twilio’s local number SMS base rate: $0.0075 SMS in/out
Twilio’s registration fee: $2-$10 per number, per month depending on the use
Brand A2P Registration $4 (one time)
AT&T base rate: $0.002-$0.004 SMS in/out based on campaign type
TOTALS: Per month ($2-$10 per number), Per text ($0.0095 - $0.0115 for SMS
The cost increase for SMS is est. ½ cent per text segment (in or out)

What is A2P 10DLC?

Text messaging was originally designed for person-to-person (P2P) communication using the full 10-digit phone number also known as a 10-Digit Long Code (10DLC). These communications were and continue to be low volume and do not require much authentication. The popularity of SMS has increased significantly in the past decade and businesses have rushed to utilize it. Now it is a business standard to have some form of SMS capability or service that uses SMS. As the volume of “texts” has increased so has the need to regulate, secure, and manage. Carriers have throttled and filtered messages in response to this growing medium without differentiating between business or consumer.

Application-to-person (A2P) messaging is a way for carriers to categorize business data transmitted across their network based on an organization’s trust score and reputation and to place security and management policies on it. A2P assumes that an application/platform rather than a person is sending out SMS communications.

Every text sent from Twilio’s platform is considered A2P in the US (link).

This new standard (A2P 10DLC) provides better deliverability and lowers the level of filtering that occurs to the communication through reputation scores.

How does it work?

There are 2 processes in the new A2P 10DLC system that clients must be aware of:

• Who the business is (Brand registration)

• What type of messages the business is sending (Campaign registration)

Twilio has provided a means to register both the brand and the campaign with the major carriers through their Trust Hub which integrates “with The Campaign Registry (TCR) to meet the requirements of carriers while making it easy for businesses to onboard” (link).

Once the brand is registered (A2P Profile) the Campaign Registry provides a Trust Score. There are several factors that each of the Tier-1 Carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon) evaluates to determine overall throughput maximums, often including this Trust Score.

Verizon has already been using the A2P system and continues to use its internal spam filtering and does not use reputation scores like the Trust Score. It has its own internal reputation system.

AT&T will start using the Trust Score and campaign registration to determine service levels starting April 1, 2021. Throughput or the number of Texts Per Second (TPS) is based on the campaign type. A higher Trust Score could result in an increased throughput within the campaign category.

T-Mobile manages messages through a daily limit based on the brand and not the campaign. This limit is set by Trust Score or other 3rd-party vetting services. (link)

Every Carrier requires businesses to be registered with the Campaign Registry.

What is a Campaign?

AT&T is the only carrier that currently requires a use case for outgoing communications from a business originating on its network. Campaigns or Use cases are broadly defined within Campaign Types. These Campaign Types have their own fees and throughput maximums. (link)

Unfortunately, religious organizations do not fall into the “Special” category for charities and will need to define their use cases more specifically.

What about low SMS volume?

According to Twilio, registration is not required for hobbyists, independent developers, or very small businesses. However, they are unable to define what a very small business is or what the number of texts should be to qualify as “low volume.” Those definitions are being worked on by the Carriers. To ensure there are no complications with text deliverability businesses should register their brand and campaigns in Twilio. Starting May 1, after AT&T starts charging for A2P communications originating from their network, all unregistered traffic will incur a higher per-message rate. (link)