Short Codes & 10DLC

US and Canadian mobile operators no longer accept application-to-person traffic from unregistered numbers. Whether you send one-time passcodes, delivery notifications or marketing to millions of subscribers, the sending identity has to be a leased short code, a 10DLC long code registered with a vetted brand and an approved campaign, or a verified toll-free number. Dollu procures, registers and operates those identities for you - dedicated and shared short codes, 10DLC brands and campaigns through The Campaign Registry, toll-free messaging verification - and delivers the traffic over our 800+ direct and hubbed operator connections at the throughput each identity is entitled to.

Short codes are five- or six-digit numbers leased from the national registry - the US Short Code Registry administered for the CTIA, and the Canadian registry run by the CWTA - and approved by each carrier individually. Dollu handles the lease, the programme brief, carrier submissions and the eight to twelve weeks of provisioning, then hosts the code on our platform at 100 messages per second by default and higher throughput on request. Dedicated codes give you exclusive use, vanity or random, and the highest deliverability; shared short codes with keyword-based routing are available where the market and carriers still permit them, typically for lower-volume programmes.

10DLC - ten-digit long code - is the US carriers’ sanctioned channel for A2P traffic from ordinary local numbers. Every sender must register a brand (legal entity, tax ID and contact details) and one or more campaigns describing the use case, sample messages and opt-in and opt-out handling with The Campaign Registry; carriers then assign a trust score that determines daily and per-minute throughput. Dollu registers brands and campaigns on your behalf, advises on external vetting to raise trust scores, maps campaigns to standard or special use cases such as 2FA, customer care, marketing, charity and political, and manages number pools, throughput tiers and per-carrier limits so messages queue rather than fail.

Outside North America the same principle applies with different mechanics. In India, TRAI’s DLT framework requires principal-entity registration, header (sender ID) and content-template registration and consent recording on an operator DLT platform before any commercial SMS is delivered; Dollu’s DLT desk manages the process across the Jio, Airtel, Vi and BSNL platforms. In the UK, short codes are allocated through the operators and their aggregators, with Ofcom and PSA rules for premium-rate services; in the EU most markets run national short-code schemes and sender-ID registration. We hold the relationships and know the paperwork, so your campaign launches on the right identity in each market.