What are the restrictions when sending messages to India?

International Restrictions

When sending messages to international destinations text messages can be subject to local restrictions/filtering imposed both at government and local network levels. Unfortunately we cannot influence these decisions so in order to maximise the potential of a successful delivery please follow the regulations. We have listed known restrictions per country but please note that these are not exhaustive and can change as new restrictions are applied – in most cases the local networks do not make notification of changes, we will update restrictions as and when they become known to us.

India

The Indian telecom regulator (TRAI) implemented policies in an effort to regulate commercial SMS messaging and as a consequence have set up a National Do Not Call registry and the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Register – any numbers appearing in either of these should not receive unauthorised messaging.

Further details can be seen at:-

TRAI Implementation Policy PDF

The two main reasons why a message may not be deliverable to an Indian mobile:-

1) The number has been added to the Indian “National Do Not Call Registry”. This is essentially a telephone preference system whereby the recipient can opt out of receiving commercial calls and text messages. If a message is sent to a number in this list, then the message will not be delivered and a failure status will be returned back to us. Further details can be found at:- 

National Do Not Call Registry

This also includes a link where numbers can be checked.

2) Numbers can also be registered with the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Register which will also filter and stop messages being received if registered. Numbers for this can be checked at:-

Customer Preference Register

Certain messaging classified by TRAI as “Transactional” can bypass these restrictions TextAnywhere can register a fixed alpha numeric originator with the authorities which will allow messages to be deemed as “transactional” – please contact us if required on 08451 221 302.

We understand that local networks may have taken differing approaches to the above and that customers may be added automatically to the NDNC – we also understand that a customer can, as quoted by the register, “For customers who would like to register/de-register their request for NDNC registry may dial 1909 or SMS to 1909 with keywords ‘START DND’ for registration and ‘STOP DND’ for de-registration” but it may be necessary for the customer to check with their individual network.