Non-GSM characters silently force Unicode encoding
The requirementstatement
Characters outside the GSM-7 alphabet — smart quotes, ™, ®, em dashes, emoji — cut the per-segment limit from 160 to 70.
- Severityseverity
- LowLOWBest practice. Worth fixing, rarely fatal on its own.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- campaign.sample[]
- Where it liveslayer
- Message contentMESSAGE_CONTENT
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- DeterministicDETERMINISTIC
- Settled in code from the values you submitted. No model involved, no judgement call, same answer every time.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
- A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
- Who requires itauthorities
- CTIATwilio
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
A curly apostrophe pasted from a word processor more than doubles the cost of every message and can split a one-segment message into three, and nothing in the authoring flow warns you. The character is visually identical to the straight version, so this is almost impossible to spot by reading.
How to fix itremediation
Replace smart quotes with straight quotes, em dashes with hyphens, and remove ™, ® and emoji from message bodies. Retype rather than pasting from a word processor.
A compliant exampleexample
Acme Coffee: you're subscribed — replace the curly apostrophe with a straight one.
Rules you will hit next
6 other rules read campaign.sample[]. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.
CMP-SAMPLE-COUNTAt least two sample messages are requiredBlockingBLOCKINGCMP-SAMPLE-LENEach sample message must be 20–1024 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-031Sample messages must be in EnglishBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-042Every message must identify who is sending itBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-171Messages must not harass, intimidate or threaten the recipientBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-210A political donation programme may not include gaming-related fundraisingBlockingBLOCKING
MSG-131 is one of 122 message content rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.