Overview

South Africa is an extremely complex SMS market and numerous filters are in place. A large amount of messages are being blocked and so Vonage uses a direct connection along with adaptive routing to get around this heavy filtering and ensure messages are delivered.

Sender ID

Alpha/Alphanumeric Sender IDs maybe changed to a local South African number in order to ensure delivery.

MTN network requires pre-registration in order to ensure traffic delivery. Unregistered Sender IDs will be changed to “NXSMS” to ensure delivery. The sender IDs are case-sensitive and must contain the brand name. Generic sender ID is not allowed.  Sender ID Registration can be done through your account manager, or you can contact Support. 

Content

Adult Content

No adult content is allowed.

Political Content

No political content is allowed.

Religious Content

No religious content is allowed.

Unicode

Unicode is supported.

Concatenated Messages

Concatenated messages are supported.

Other Features or Restrictions

Delivery Receipts

Handset delivery receipts are supported.

Virtual Numbers

Virtual Numbers have local reach, with the exception of Telkom (8.ta/Telkom Mobile).

2-Way Reach Limitation

Due to local agreements, to receive SMS on your long virtual number, you will first need to send to the recipient from the long virtual number. This is a one-for-one system only. You will not be able to receive SMS from numbers you have not sent to, and they will be dropped by the local network.

Additional Information

For more information, see the following articles:

• Global SMS Features Overview (Outbound-Only)
• Global SMS Numbers Features Overview