BT Group (EE) have informed us that they are making some changes to their SMS services to combat the ever-growing problem of smishing in the UK.
To ensure that all customers can adjust to the upcoming changes seamlessly, these are the changes being implemented in two phases, the first coming into force on the 1st June 2023
1) SMS’ sent using numeric sender originators will be blocked unless they are a UK based number in international format. For example, 01615377707 is not valid, but 441615377707 is valid, as is 447452122000. Please note that this change will not affect the ability for people to reply to the message and the only difference in user experience will be the different formatting of the originator.
2) All short code sender originators will be blocked unless the sender id is 5-6 characters long and starts with either a 6, 7, or 8 (standard UK Short Code format). For example, 61234 is valid, whereas 1234 and 12345 are invalid.
3) Alpha sender ids/originators that consist of certain special characters will be blocked. Forbidden characters include, but are not limited to @, $, #, !. Valid special characters for alpha/alphanumeric sender ids include A to Z (UPPERCASE), a to z (lowercase), 0-9 (numeric), special characters ' ' (space), '.' (full stop), '&' (ampersand), '_' (underscore), '-' (Dash/hyphen). For example, BCH-Data is valid, whereas B
Whilst this is currently only going to be enforced by EE we will be applying this to all outbound messages as other operators will be following these changes in the near future.
If you are using originators which will be affected by the above, please ensure you update them prior to the 1st June 2023.
Please note this change will not affect any international messages.
Posted May 24, 2023 - 18:14 BST