The updates in this article only pertain to NEW departments. Existing departments are not affected. If you head to your department page and all departments say Registered or Not Required under Compliance Status then you are not currently affected.
Starting March 31, 2023, mobile carriers will prevent businesses from sending text messages using phone numbers not associated with approved campaigns. If you have a Textline department created on or after that date, you will need to associate it with an already approved campaign (if relevant) or wait for the new campaign to be approved. As of this writing, new campaigns are taking 2-3 weeks to be fully approved and ready for messaging.
If you are looking to add a new number to your Textline account you currently have the following options for departments:
Get a Toll-Free Number. While they also require registration, Toll-Free Numbers can still send text messages while waiting on approval. Fully unregistered Toll-Free Numbers can send up to 500 messages daily, 1,000 weekly, or 2,000 monthly. Once registration has been submitted and waiting on approval, the cap is raised to 2,000 messages daily, 6,000 weekly, or 10,000 monthly. Once fully approved, the cap is removed.
Get a new 10-digit local number (10DLC) and use an existing campaign. If you have existing campaigns saved in Textline and the use cases are the same, you may associate the new phone number with an existing campaign and begin messaging immediately. Please note: re-using an existing campaign that doesn't match the use case for the new number can get the campaign banned, affecting all numbers on that campaign. Double-check that the use cases match up.
Get a new 10-digit local number (10DLC) and create a new campaign. This would require you to create a new campaign and wait until the regulators fully approve your campaign and allow you to message on your new number. While you are waiting for the campaign to be approved, you will be able to see the department in your list and see any incoming messages but you will not be able to send out any messages (even replies). We will alert you via email once the campaign has been approved and you can start messaging.
We know this can be problematic for many of our customers and are working with regulators and the mobile networks to provide better options going forward.