SMS CODES

DECODING

DESH RAJ BHANDARI

Email – desh.raj.bhandari@gmail.com
Recently, from almost a month SMSs from Banks, Service Providers, Companies have started
prefixing something like ID, AT, VK…etc. What’s all this after all!!? Here I am to explain you
what it is! Normally these SMSs originates from a Bulk SMS provider where you can use 11
digit Alpha-Numeric characters as "Sender". But there were some security risks in this method. I
was able to give a phone number as "Sender" & it appears as that person at the recipient end.
Basically there was a chance to send SMSs as a different person! I was actually using this to fool
my friends.

But the new TRAI regulation insisted bulk SMS providers to restrict the "Sender ID" to 8
characters. Other three characters should be used to specify who is the service provider & where
it’s originated from. Say for example: HDFCBANK sends an SMS to you using bulk SMS
provider located at Tamil Nadu which uses Airtel. You will receive it as AT-HDFCBANK. First
character specifies which service provider the message is being originated & the second
character specifies from which location it’s originated. Here is the table which has details of
these SMS codes:

Service Provider Codes:

Service Provider Code

Aircel, Dishnet Wireless D
Bharti Airtel A
BSNL B
BPL Mobile/Loop Telecom L
Datacom Solutions C
HFCL Infotel H
Idea Cellular I
MTNL M
Reliance Communications R
Reliance Telecom E
S tel S
Shyam Telecom Y
Spice Telecom P
Swan Telecom W
Tata Teleservices T
Unitech Group U
Vodafone Group V
Service Area Code
Andhra Pradesh A
Assam S
Bihar B
Delhi D
Gujarat G
Haryana H
Himachal Pradesh I
Jammu & Kashmir J
Karnataka X
Kerala L
Kolkata K
Madhya Pradesh Y
Maharashtra Z
Mumbai M
North East N
Orissa O
Punjab P
Rajasthan R
Tamil Nadu T
UP-East E
UP-West W
West Bengal V

So, combination of these two constitutes the first two digit of? Sender? Followed by an hyphen (-
) & actual sender name.

The codes were introduced by TRAI to curb Unsolicited Commercial Communication conducted
by some miscreant Bulk SMS Providers and to effectively enforce the NDNC.
With these codes implemented, subscribers can now actually trace out the Sender ID/Bulk SMS
Aggregator in India and the Mobile Operator can take suitable action.