The consumer-traffic thresholds are where P2P stops

The requirementstatement

Traffic above the published consumer-operation reference thresholds is classified as non-consumer, whatever the sender intends.

Severityseverity: MediumMEDIUMUsually survives review, but lowers your trust score or invites a manual look you would rather avoid.
When it bitesphase: After you are livepostFalls due once you are sending: STOP handling, quiet hours, suppression, record retention.
What is checkedobject: per-number traffic shape
Where it liveslayer: OperationalOPERATIONAL
How Ekas settles itdetectability: Post-submissionUNDETECTABLE_PRE_SUBMISSION; The subject does not exist yet at submission time: a reply window, an expiring PIN, a queue position. Reported with its deadline.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: CTIA
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

The thresholds — a rough messages-per-minute band, around a thousand a day, one number per person, a hundred recipients per message, roughly balanced two-way traffic, and a limit on repeated identical messages — define the boundary in practice. A sender operating just above them without an A2P registration is not in a grey area; they are unregistered A2P traffic, and it is blocked outright rather than throttled.

How to fix itremediation

Measure your own traffic against the thresholds and register A2P if you are near any of them. The two-way ratio is the one people miss — traffic that is overwhelmingly outbound is non-consumer whatever the volume.

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

What is the outgoing-to-incoming ratio on your numbers?

1Measure it. Traffic that is overwhelmingly outbound is non-consumer whatever the volume, and it is the threshold people miss.
2Check the others too: messages per minute, roughly a thousand a day, one number per person, a hundred recipients per message, repeated identical messages.
3Register A2P if you are near any of them.

What wrong looks like: A sender just above the thresholds without an A2P registration is not in a grey area — they are unregistered A2P traffic, and it is blocked outright rather than throttled.

Notesnotes

Traffic shape we cannot see. What the user has to check is the outgoing-to-incoming ratio on their numbers, since it reclassifies traffic that is well under every volume threshold.

Rules you will hit next

Other operational rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

OPS-032A help request containing a stop-word is not an opt-outMediumMEDIUM OPS-042Somebody has to own revocations that arrive in conversationMediumMEDIUM OPS-050The opt-out confirmation is worth sending inside five minutesMediumMEDIUM OPS-051Only ask which messages to stop when there is more than one kindMediumMEDIUM OPS-057Log the sends you did not makeMediumMEDIUM OPS-062An opted-out consumer must be able to come backMediumMEDIUM

All operational rules

OPS-132 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.