What does AM, VM,
and AD.,stand for in text messages from India
Post, DOP Finacle, Flipkart, Amazon, etc. What is its significance?
Understanding bulk SMS and
its regulatory guidelines using AM, VM, AD and other codes for promotional
marketing purposes
SMS (Short messaging service) is part of telecom, which is
regulated by Government of India. Few years ago, SMS prices were very low, as
low as a paisa per SMS or free in some cases leading to SMS flood in the
country. Every small, medium or large business uses this tool to communicate
their business proposal with their potential customers using a new generation
broadcasting tool called Bulk SMS.
This resulted in unwanted messages to mobile users and hence to
regulate such unwanted messages or calls TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India) has given guidelines to regulate SMS for commercial purpose. With
several amendments and guidelines around promotional SMS marketing there have
been several changes and rules to govern.
MS is
classified as Promotional SMS and Transactional SMS
Promotional
SMS:
This is
easy to understand, any SMS communication promoting some business sent to any
mobile which is not part of NDNC registry in the same category of the business.
Mobile
subscribers can register with NDNC with in following categories:
·
Banking / Insurance / Financial products / credit cards
·
Real Estate
·
Education
·
Health
·
Consumer goods and automobiles
·
Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
·
Tourism and Leisure
If none
of the above categories
As a
business, you can only send Promotional SMS messages between 9 AM and 9 PM. All
the messages will have a 5 digit numeric sender id prefixed with operator code. Ex
LM-16021
Transactional
SMS :
What is the meaning of SMS codes like AM, VM and AD in text
messages:
When you receive SMS’s like LM-VODAFONE, TD-AMAZON, MM-FACEBK
etc. are messages sent by financial institutions, telecom service providers,
social networking sites etc. such institutes have started prefixing these codes
like AM, VM, AD and to name some more LM, MM, BT, TA, AD, ID, AT, VK..
Let us brief the significance of these codes:
Such SMS’s are originated from bulk SMS providers and are
restricted by TRAI with ‘Sender ID’ of minimum 6 characters.
Three characters to specify the identity of the bulk SMS service
provider and its origination, let us illustrate with an example: LM-WAYSMS
message heading when received indicates that ‘LM’ loop mobile bulk message has
been sent to you from Mumbai. First character specifies which service provider
the message is being originated from and the second character specifies the
location of the SMS.
The following codes will help you relate your bulk messages:
Service provider codes-
A: Bharti Airtel and Bharti Hexacom
B: BSNL
C: Datacom
D: Aircel and Dishnet Wireless
E: Reliance Telecom
H: HFCL
I: Idea Cellular, Aditya Birla Telecom
L: Loop Telecom and BPL
M: MTNL
P: Spice Communications
R: Reliance Communications
S: S. Tel Ltd
T: Tata Teleservices, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra
U: Unitech Group of Companies (Telenor)
V: Vodafone Group of Companies
W: Swan Telecom
Service Area Codes-
A: Andhra Pradesh
B: Bihar
D: Delhi
E: UP (East)
G: Gujarat
H: Haryana
I: Himachal Pradesh
J: Jammu & Kashmir
K: Kolkata
L: Kerala
M: Mumbai
N: North East
O: Orissa
P: Punjab
R: Rajasthan
S: Assam
T: Tamil Nadu, including Chennai
V: West Bengal
W: UP (West)
X: Karnataka
Y: Madhya Pradesh
Z: Maharashtra
So when you
receive SMS from VM-AMAZON, that means they are using Vodafone and sending from
Mumbai.
