T-Mobile makes changes to short code provisioning process

By Giselle Tsirulnik

May 6, 2011

T-Mobile USA sent out an alert to clients regarding policy changes for standard-rated campaigns, refund rates and a price cap increase that may have several implications for the industry.

Basically T-Mobile has made changes to its short code provisioning process for standard-rated campaigns, which favors Fortune 500 brands. Additionally, the carrier is implementing stricter standards for monthly refund rates and a premium price point increase.

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Here is the alert that T-Mobile sent:

These changes are effective immediately and are highlighted below:

Any Content Providers who are listed as Fortune 500 companies, or companies that are in good standing with the Better Business Bureau, are eligible for an accelerated campaign approval and provisioning process.

For those Content Providers that are eligible, the follow terms apply:

The usual service activation fee of $500 will apply for Fortune 500 companies.

For those companies that are not Fortune 500, but are in good standing with the BBB, a service activation fee of $2,000 will apply. The go-to-market schedule for all these eligible campaigns will be 12 business days from the time Mobile Messenger submits the campaign to T-Mobile. Additional details related to this new accelerated process will be furnished upon request.

Rate Performance Improvement Plan
T-Mobile is putting additional controls in place to manage excessive refund rates. Starting with April transactions, each campaign that has a refund rate greater than 20 percent and $10,000 or more in monthly refund rate deterrent fees will be placed on a watch list.

Those placed on the watch list will be reassessed based on June activity and analyzed at the end of July. For Campaigns that have not seen some improvement based on June activity will be suspended on T-Mobile’s network at the end of July. If there is no improvement in July, those campaigns will be expired on T-Mobile’s network at the end of August.

T-Mobile, as always, reserves the right to shut down any service with an excessive refund rate.

Price Cap Increase
The $10 price cap for a single billing event is being raised to $15. This policy change will not be reflected in the T-Mobile Playbook until the newest version comes out later in Q2, but it is, as stated above, effective immediately for those Content Providers who wish to leverage this higher price point. 

If you have any questions or wish to further discuss, please contact your Account Manager.

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Mobile Marketer interviewed Tim Miller, president of mobile marketing company Sumotext, Little Rock, AR, regarding his view on this alert. Here is what he said.

Are they the first carrier to offer fast track?
Yes.

Do you think other carriers will follow?
I think most carriers will eventually have to move to some kind of fast track program, but it would make a lot more sense to green light programs submitted by experienced application providers, as they have the most skin in the game and typically have dozens of active short codes.

It makes no sense to trust a Fortune 500 brand or someone with a BBB rating.

The most visible and well-known programs are often the ones that don't follow the carrier's playbooks.

And what will this mean for SMS marketing?
T-Mobile is the only carrier that doesn't turn on a short code as soon as it's provisioned - i.e. approved on it's written merits.

T-Mobile only white lists a few phone numbers for testing.

They don't turn the short code on to the outside world until after they have also tested and certified the code. This is why everyone blames them the most.

So, this doesn't change much for the industry because it's still going to take 8-12 weeks to get a short code certified by all the carriers and nobody can afford to buy attention from them all.

But, if you are a Fortune 500 company, you should now expect your short code to be functional and working for the outside world in about six weeks, which is the average time it takes the other carriers to provision a new short code.

Fortune 500 seems a high barrier, right? 
Yes.

What's the biggest issue so far with short code provisioning?
The carriers are using their people in the wrong areas.

Instead of discouraging short code adoption by making it so slow and expensive to get started, they should be pointing their limited resources to monitoring and enforcing their rules on the 1,800 active short codes that already exist.

After all, the application providers and aggregators are already checking everyone's work in the written program briefs and the aggregators are also testing new programs before they get submitted to the carriers.

So instead of all this redundancy up front, the carrier should focus their resources on enforcement. It would also be nice to see them include some official rules for long codes, as this is where all the spam is coming from right now.

Comments on "T-Mobile makes changes to short code provisioning process"

1. Jonathan Madnick says:

   May 6, 2011 at 1:35pm

   Slow down there!
   "It would also be nice to see them include some official rules for long codes, as this is where all the spam is coming from right now."
   
   Really? I operate www.usshortcodeswhois.com. I get complaints all the time from people who claim to have been spammed by a short code. These people are angry and frustrated. There is one carrier who even tells subscribers to call me. I redirect them to proper authorities as I can't help them because it's not my short code.
   
   The issue is not short code vs. long code. The issue is enforcement of CAN-SPAM, TCPA, and COPPA by the government, not the carriers. Law abiding users of long codes should not be restricted by carriers.
   I concur with Public Knowledge: http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/text-message-petition
   We should not cede authority to the few wireless providers who dominate the market.