The Next Trend in Consumer Communications: What You Need to Know about 10 DLC

10-digit long code (10 DLC) has rapidly become revolutionary technology that evens the playing field for companies around the world. This is a new messaging solution that allows enterprises to engage from U.S. Local Phone Number with U.S.-based mobile subscribers whether those are your customers or employees.

10 DLC comes to the market as an affordable solution for any sized business to deliver regional, local mobile messaging experiences to their most valuable customers with compliancy and transparency by design.

Increasing Compliance and Transparency

Today, even large enterprises that are sending to small groups of customers may benefit from this option. Historically, many of them have selected shared short codes that are not the best brand experience and present compliance concerns. With the introduction of 10 DLC those brands have an alternate, compliant solution to shared short codes, allowing for businesses, in or outside the U.S., to communicate with their U.S. customer base obtaining a legitimate 10 DLC sender ID compliant with best practices and regulations.

From the standpoint of U.S. mobile subscribers, I’m very pleased with the transparency and accountability this provides for business messaging. Messaging fraud is rapidly growing. However, carriers are using filters to block messages that appear unregistered and likely spam, helping eliminate consumers’ uncertainty as it relates to the legitimacy of the messages. This solution paves the road for consumers to engage with their brands and become loyal, repeating customers.

Leveling the Playing Field

Through conversations with our customers, partners and mobile operators, 10 DLC was developed following the precedent set by short codes in North America by providing control and transparency for a better customer experience. While short codes were developed as a quality, albeit somewhat pricey, messaging solution to support the mass communication needs of large enterprises, this new solution levels the playing field for businesses of all shapes and sizes domestically and internationally. Companies can obtain affordable 10 Digit U.S. Phone Numbers, allowing outstanding, two-way SMS and MMS communication and quality mobile experiences with customer and business communities in the U.S.

Comparing 10 DLC to Short Codes

Although both products must comply with numerous regulations and best practices, there are critical differences between an all-mighty short code and a 10-digit long code.

While cost and expedited time to market is more appealing on 10 DLC, enterprises shall carefully consider 10 DLC features and limitations with throughput and volume on this new ecosystem. 10 DLCs are not intended to replace short codes. Instead, they’re meant to expand and improve existing long-code messaging programs, enhance customer communications strategy, and provide more opportunities to deliver great mobile experiences.

Short codes are still best for some use cases. By having no theorical limit on the number of messages per day, transactions per second and by being able to provide delivery receipts to the device for the majority of the market, a short-code is the best-in-class solution for a vast majority of the use cases in US and 10DLC comes as an excellent, more affordable, next best alternative.

Connecting Businesses to Consumers with Syniverse

Syniverse has been integral in establishing and standardizing this new 10 DLC solution with the carriers. While many messaging companies have been speaking of 10 DLC for some time, none have been as close to its reliable rollout as Syniverse. We provide a platform that directly connects into every major carrier in the U.S. without any hops, translating to fewer points of failure and improved operational efficiencies.

The adoption of 10 DLC has taken on great momentum, and we continue work to ensure this is done effectively and resourcefully.