Sender ID registration requirements for India

By default, when you send messages to recipients in India, Amazon SNS uses International Long Distance Operator (ILDO) connections to transmit those messages. When recipients see a message that's sent over an ILDO connection, it appears to be sent from a random numeric ID (unless you purchase a dedicated short code).

Note

The price for sending messages using local routes is shown on the Amazon SNS Worldwide SMS Pricing page. The price for sending messages using ILDO connections is higher than the price for sending messages through local routes.

If you prefer to use an alphabetic sender ID for your SMS messages, you have to send those messages over local routes rather than ILDO routes. To send messages using local routes, you must first register your use case and message templates with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) through Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) portals. These registration requirements are designed to reduce the number of unsolicited messages that Indian consumers receive and to protect consumers from potentially harmful messages. This registration process is managed by Vodafone India through its Vilpower service.

Step 1: Registering with the TRAI

Before you can send SMS messages to recipients in India, you must register your organization with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Be prepared to provide the following information during the registration process:

• Your organization's Permanent Account Number (PAN).

• Your organization's Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN).

• Your organization's Goods and Services Tax Identification Number (GSTIN).

• Your organization's Corporate Identity Number (CIN).

• A letter of authorization that gives you the authority to register your organization.

The following is a sample list of a few Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) registration sites you can use to register your organization with the TRAI (fees may apply). The registration process varies by site. Contact their respective support teams for assistance.

• BSNL DLT - Free registration.

• Jio Trueconnect - Charges a fee for completing the registration process.

• Smart Enterprise Solutions - Charges a fee for completing the registration process.

• Vilpower - Includes a template that you can download and modify to fit your needs. Vilpower charges a fee for completing the registration process.

To register your organization with the TRAI

The following details how to register your organization with the TRAI using Vilpower.

1. In a web browser, go to the Vilpower website at https://www.vilpower.in.

2. Choose Signup to create another account. During the registration process, do the following:

   • For the type of entity to register as, choose As Enterprise.

   • For Telemarketer Name, use Infobip Private Limited - ALL. When prompted, start typing Infobip and then choose Infobip Private Limited – ALL from the dropdown list.

   • For Enter Telemarketer ID, enter 110200001152.

   • When prompted to provide your Header IDs, enter the sender IDs that you want to register.

     Note

     India requires sender IDs to be exactly six characters in length.

   • When prompted to provide your Content Templates, enter the message content that you plan to send to your recipients. Include a template for every message that you plan to send.

   Note

   DLT registration provider websites are not maintained by Amazon Web Services. Steps on their websites are subject to change.

Step 2: Requesting a sender ID

To request a sender ID in India, you need to file an AWS Support request. Complete the steps at Requesting sender IDs. In your request, provide the following required information:

• The AWS Region that the sender plans to send SMS messages from.

• The company name used during the DLT registration process.

• The Principal Entity ID (PEID) that you received after successful DLT entity registration.

• Estimated monthly volumes.

• An explanation of your use case.

• A description of the end user opt-in flow.

• Confirmation that end user opt-ins are collected and registered.

Step 3: Sending SMS messages

After registering your organization with TRAI, you can send SMS messages to recipients in India.

1. Sign in to the Amazon SNS console.

2. In the console menu, set the region selector to a region that supports SMS messaging.

3. On the navigation panel, choose Text messaging (SMS).

4. On the Mobile Text messaging (SMS) page, choose Publish text message. The Publish SMS message window opens.

5. For Message type, choose one of the following:

   • Promotional – Noncritical messages, such as marketing messages.

     When using numeric Sender IDs, choose this option.

   • Transactional – Critical messages that support customer transactions, such as one-time passcodes for multi-factor authentication.

     When using alphabetic or alphanumeric Sender IDs, choose this option.

   This message-level setting overrides your default message type, which you set on the Text messaging preferences page.

   For pricing information for promotional and transactional messages, see Global SMS Pricing.

6. For Number, enter the phone number to which you want to send the message.

7. For Message, enter the message to send.

   When adding content to SMS messages, make sure that it exactly matches the content in the DLT registered template. Carriers block SMS messages if their message content includes additional character returns, spaces, punctuation, or mismatched sentence case. Variables in a template can have 30 or fewer characters.

8. In the Origination identities section, for the Sender ID, enter a custom ID that contains 3-11 characters.

   Sender IDs can be numeric for promotional messages, or alphabetic or alphanumeric for transactional messages. The Sender ID is displayed as the message sender on the receiving device.

   For numeric promotional Sender IDs registered for India, specify the Sender ID as the Origination number parameter in the SMS sending request.

9. Expand the Country-specific attributes section and specify the following required attributes for sending SMS messages to recipients in India:

   • Entity ID – The entity ID or principal entity (PE) ID that you received from the regulatory body for sending SMS messages to recipients in India.

     This is a custom, TRAI-provided string of 1–50 characters that uniquely identifies the entity that you registered with the TRAI.

   • Template ID – The template ID that you received from the regulatory body for sending SMS messages to recipients in India.

     This is a custom, TRAI-provided string of 1–50 characters that uniquely identifies the template that you registered with the TRAI. The template ID must be associated with the Sender ID that you specified in the previous step, and with the message content.

10. Choose Publish message.

For information on sending SMS messages to recipients in other countries, see Publishing SMS messages to a mobile phone using Amazon SNS.

Troubleshooting SMS messages sent to recipients in India

The following are some reasons carriers may block SMS messages:

• No template was found that matched the content sent.

  Content sent: <#> 12345 is your OTP to verify mobile number. Your OTP is valid for 15 minutes -- ABC Pvt. Ltd.

  Matched template: None

  Issue: There are no DLT templates that include <#> or {#var#} at the beginning of the DLT registered template.

• The value of a variable exceeds 30 characters.

  Content sent: 12345 is your OTP code for ABC (ABC Company - India Private Limited) - (ABC 123456789). Share with your agent only. - ABC Pvt. Ltd.

  Matched template: {#var#} is your OTP code for {#var#} ({#var#}) - ({#var#} {#var#}). Share with your agent only. - ABC Pvt. Ltd.

  Issue: The value of “ABC Company - India Private Limited” in the content sent exceeds a single {#var#} character limit of 30.

• The message sentence case does not match the sentence case in the template.

  Content sent: 12345 is your OTP code for ABC (ABC Company - India Private Limited) - (ABC 123456789). Share with your agent only. - ABC Pvt. Ltd.

  Matched template: {#var#} is your OTP code for {#var#} ({#var#}) - ({#var#} {#var#}). Share with your agent only. - ABC PVT. LTD.

  Issue: The company name appended to the DLT matched template is capitalized while the content sent has changed parts of the name to lowercase — “ABC Pvt. Ltd.” vs. “ABC PVT. LTD.”