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60 Second CSC's
for dummies overview
(common short codes)
So What Are Common Short Codes?
I’ve put together information over
the past few years to help answer client questions around common
short codes (CSC's) in particular around licensing of USA short
codes, and I thought it might be of interest to a few people who may
be thinking about implementing a SMS campaign using this 'contact'
methodology tool.
There are a number of areas to consider when it comes to mobile
marketing in the USA. There are fuzzy rules and regulations from
CTIA and Neustar, the carriers themselves and unofficial guidelines
from the MMA
http://www.mmaglobal.com, there are regular changes to the mma
guidelines so best to check in on a regular basis.
A lot of this will change over time as it has in other markets as
the market matures(Australia and the Europe for example) . In
addition some of the pricing and revenue sharing opportunities from
premium sms will come have to become more reasonable over time.
At the moment it just plain sucks here in the USA. Industry pundits
wonder why SMS marketing is behind global stats....it's really
simple - USA carriers suck in their pricing models for CSC
registration and operation.
At the end of the day the carriers have the final right to rule what
traffic they do and don’t carry on their networks but if you follow
the
http://www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf
documentation you should be right most of the time. mBlox is
an aggregator I've worked with in the past and puts out a very good
document detailing each of the individual carrier changes as they
happen so make sure that you get onto this mailing list.
As you already know in order to conduct a mobile marketing campaign
in the USA the CTIA (The US Cellular Carriers Association
http://www.ctia.org/) require each company to register and
deliver from a 5 digit Common Short Code or CSC’s. These CSC’s are 5
or 6 digit numbers in the range of 20000 to 99999 and once
registered will be accepted as commercial traffic originator across
all US carriers.
The CTIA have assigned Neustar as the registry of these common short
codes and they can be applied for from this website
http://www.usshortcodes.com/
The license fee for these CSC’s are as follows;
Randomly allocated CSC of 5 or 6 digits $500 per month
Selected (or Vanity number) of 5 or 6 digits $1,000 per month
Generally companies will try and register a CSC that fits with the
branding of their product name on an alphanumeric handset 73774 =
PEPSI
Or a derivative of it such as 62288 = NBCTV
You can search here to see if the CSC you think would best suit your
company is available here
http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_obtain_a_csc.html
Technically if a number is already taken by company X you cannot
purchase or buyout the CSC from company X as it actually belongs to
Neustar, however we have seen the transfer of some shortcodes as
larger companies came in to the market only to find someone already
using the one they wanted.
Also keep in mind you might want to be searching for either a single
CSC or for a variety of CSC’s to represent each of the various
business units (or break them out to individual licenses to maintain
delivery integrity).
Something to be aware of is that CTIA/Neustar didn't release 6 digit
codes until the spring of 2006…..
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-06-2006/0004274986&EDATE
It’s not an official list but a good list to see what other short
codes are out there is
http://www.usshortcodeswhois.com/index.html
This list was put together by a company frustrated with the lack of
validated information available and is updated on a regular basis.
Regardless of whether you proceed with the 5 or 6 digit number the
one thing to keep in mind when applying for a CSC is to make sure it
is applied for by you directly and in your company’s name. I've
worked with another client who in the process of signing up for a
mobile marketing campaign allowed the aggregator to apply for the
short code in the aggregators name….only to find when they chose to
move their SMS traffic to another aggregator that they were refused.
A CSC is a valuable piece of marketing property, make sure you treat
it as such.
How do I find out
more?
Feel free to contact Cognation for a briefing call to understand how
you and your marketing campaigns might be able to benefit from SMS
integration.
Regards,
Dean Collins
dean@cognation.net
+1-212-203-4357 (Direct)
+1-917-207-3420 (Mobile)
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial)
http://www.Cognation.net
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