The sender must be who the message says it is

JSONMarkdown

The requirementstatement

The message number and sender name must not be spoofed or substituted in any way that misleads a consumer.

Severityseverity
BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
When it bitesphase
After you are livepostFalls due once you are sending: STOP handling, quiet hours, suppression, record retention.
What is checkedobject
outbound sender identity
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
Hard stopHARD_STOP
Not remediable. Resubmitting will not help, and anyone offering to fix it is selling you a rejection.
Who requires itauthorities
CTIAall MNOs
When it appliesapplicabilityText
Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

Sender identity is the only thing a recipient has to judge a message by, and misrepresenting it is the mechanic behind every smishing campaign — which is why the prohibition is absolute rather than proportionate. Legitimate substitution exists, for failover or for a shared brand, and it requires an arrangement with the provider rather than a configuration change.

How to fix itremediation

Send from the numbers registered to the campaign, presented as themselves. Where a substitution is genuinely needed, arrange it with the provider in advance rather than configuring it.

Check this yourselfattestation

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

Does any part of your stack rewrite the originating number or sender name?

  1. 1Ask your provider and check any aggregation layer between your application and the carrier — some rewrite the originator for routing reasons.
  2. 2Confirm messages arrive from the numbers registered to the campaign, presented as themselves.
  3. 3Where a substitution is genuinely needed, arrange it with the provider in advance rather than configuring it.

What wrong looks like: A routing layer substitutes the originator without anybody choosing it. Sender identity is the only thing a recipient can judge a message by, and the sender is accountable for the result either way.

Notesnotes

Wire-level behaviour. What the user has to confirm is that no part of their stack rewrites the originator — some aggregation layers do it for routing reasons, and the sender is accountable for the result either way.

Rules you will hit next

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

OPS-026The universal opt-out keyword set must be declaredBlockingBLOCKINGOPS-027Opt-out keyword handling must be declared, not assumedBlockingBLOCKINGOPS-029A revocation must survive punctuation, case and surrounding wordsBlockingBLOCKINGOPS-031A plainly-worded opt-out counts even with no keyword in itBlockingBLOCKINGOPS-033STOP must never come back as an errorBlockingBLOCKINGOPS-037On a shared address, STOP must stop everythingBlockingBLOCKING

All operational rules

OPS-153 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.

Reading the rules is the easy part.

Ekas runs every rule that gates approval, 823 of these 915, against your registration before it reaches the carrier. It reads your site, your policy pages and your opt-in the way a reviewer would, and hands you the fix, not just the verdict.

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