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What is a Sender ID?

A Sender ID (from address) is the name or number that identifies the sender of an SMS message.

When a message is delivered to a mobile phone, the recipient may see any one of the following from address formats. This will indicate who the message came from.

  • They could see an international number such as +123456780

  • They could see a local number

  • They could see a short code (a short number, usually five or six digits only)

  • They could see an alphanumeric originator such as “Message”

From addresses differ from country to country and carrier to carrier. This is because in some countries, carriers block SMS messages that are sent from foreign numbers. To ensure delivery, the Sender ID is therefore changed to a local or otherwise acceptable number by Clickatell automatically.

Clickatell does not support custom alphanumeric Sender ID requests, but we do support short codes and long numbers as sender sources.

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