AWS Messaging & Targeting Blog

Send SMS at scale to Indian recipients using Amazon Pinpoint

SMS has one of the highest open rates of all customer communications channels, and is popular with application builders for both transactional use cases like appointment reminders or asynchronous use cases like a SMS chatbot. Amazon Pinpoint supports SMS in over 200 countries and territories, but SMS sending requirements can vary by recipient destination. SMS sending requirements, depending on locale, can include restrictions on origination identity used, messages content, or the routes used to deliver to recipients. Amazon Pinpoint is making it easier for you to send application-to-person (A2P) SMS to Indian recipients using domestic routes. Amazon Pinpoint now supports submitting the Principal Entity ID (PEID) and Template ID using the Send Message API.

Introduction to new regulations and DLT platform

In 2018, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR) to regulate text messaging in India. To implement this, TRAI adopted a block-chain technology called the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. Every business entity who wants to send Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS to their end users in India using domestic routes will need to register their business and use case on the DLT platform. DLT registration is a concept that is unique to the SMS industry in India. If you don’t send text messages to recipients in India then DLT registration doesn’t apply to you. You will not be able to send A2P SMS to Indian recipients using domestic routes if you do not register on the DLT platform. Please note that if you are an international enterprise and you would like to send A2P SMS to recipients in India, you can leverage Amazon Pinpoint’s International Long Distance Operator (ILDO) routes. See more information here.

Changes in sending A2P SMS

DLT has brought many changes to the way SMS is sent in India. These include a new registration process, new message categorization, as well as restrictions around how to send messages. See below for an overview of this process.

Registration with TRAI: Prior to DLT, only service providers/telemarketers were required to register with TRAI. With the updated regulations, business owners/principal entity who wants to send SMS to their customers in India have to sign-up and complete the registration process on DLT platform.

Sender ID & Template Registration: Prior to DLT, bulk SMS service providers used to approve Sender IDs and templates. With the updated regulations, business owners/principal entity have to register Sender ID and Templates on the DLT platform and get those approved.

Customer Preference and Consent: Prior to DLT, customers were either on National Do Not Disturb Registry (DND) or not. The new regulation gave control to consumers/mobile subscribers by offering a time-window where they can manage their preferences based on a specific time or day and allow receipt of certain kinds of promotional messages. It means that customers can choose to receive promotional text from a company even if they have activated DND.

Types of Message: With the new regulation, the DLT-defined domestic routes are as follows.

  • Promotional SMS: these include offers, discounts to non-opt in users, and SMS delivered to Non-DND numbers where the customer has not explicitly opted in. These can only be delivered between 10.00AM to 21:00PM IST. Operators have also stopped supporting delivery notification and receipts for promotional SMS. Promotional messages are sent using 6-digit numeric Sender IDs.
  • Transactional SMS: this is reserved for financial organizations to send One-Time-Passwords (OTPs). Transactional messages use 6-digit alpha Sender IDs.
  • Service Implicit: these include service-related informative messages other than OTPs. Amazon Pinpoint classifies these under the “transactional” route type, so customers will continue to select the “transactional” route type to send these messages.
  • Service Explicit: these include promotional messages customers have opted to receive from a particular business. Amazon Pinpoint classifies these under the “transactional” route type, so customers will continue to select the “transactional” route type to send these messages.

Validation (Scrubbing) Functionality: With DLT, customers’ mobile numbers are filtered in real-time to match the desired criteria set by the customer. This means that if a customer gave consent to receive SMS on Monday, but withdraws the permission on Wednesday, then the SMS will not be delivered on Thursday. Customer preferences are updated in real-time and the results are immediately available on DLT. When sending, the DLT platform will validate the PEID customers used to send against the registered Sender ID, and validate the SMS Template against the registered Brand name, so that only approved businesses using approved SMS Sender are able to send SMS to the end recipient.

DLT registration timeline

TRAI is the entity enforcing DLT implementation in India. TRAI has designated these changes to take place over several phases and months, with each phase increasing the level of restriction on message sending:

Phase 1 (Initiated June 2020): The first phase is to complete Principal Entity ID (PEID) & the SMS Header or Sender ID registration on the DLT platform. Only registered SMS Header or Sender ID can be used to send SMS to India using domestic routes.

Phase 2 (Initiated Nov 2020): The second phase is to register Template ID on the DLT platform. For each SMS send, the PEID and Template ID are validated against the registered Sender ID.

Phase 3 (Initiated April 2021): The third phase is to validate that the content of the message template matches exactly what was registered on the DLT platform. Brand Name is a mandatory field to be included in content for template registration.

Using Pinpoint to send SMS to India

To send SMS messages to India from Amazon Pinpoint, you’ll first need to complete DLT registration. To do so, follow the steps described on the Special requirements for sending SMS messages to recipients in India documentation.

Next, to make sure your SMS messages are delivered successfully using local routes, you need to do the following when using Amazon Pinpoint sending the SMS message.

  • Use a Sender ID which has been registered on the DLT platform that matches your message content.
  • In the Pinpoint Send Message API, provide values for the following parameters:
    • EntityId – The entity ID or Principal Entity (PE) ID received from the regulatory body for sending SMS in your country.
    • TemplateId – The template ID received from the regulatory body for sending SMS in your country.
  • Choose one of the following route types:
    • Promotional – Choose this type for promotional messages, which use a numeric sender ID.
    • Transactional – Choose this type for transactional messages, which use a case-sensitive alphanumeric sender ID.

When adding the content to your message, thoroughly review your content to ensure that it exactly matches the content in the DLT registered template. If you include additional character returns, spaces, punctuation, or mismatched sentence case, carriers will block your SMS. Variables in a template – for example, {#var#} – cannot exceed 30 characters for each variable. The following are some common use cases for message rejection:

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.”

Start using Amazon Pinpoint to send SMS messages to Indian recipients by following the steps described on the Special requirements for sending SMS messages to recipients in India documentation.