A few years ago TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India )enforced regulations because of which when any company or working body which sends bulk SMS need to register with a unique ID, also called as Sender ID. The unique ID in India is the eight-character length, e.g. AX-AIRTEL. These shortcodes can reveal a bit about who is sending the SMS. Here is how to find more about the Sender ID in SMS which is sent via BULK SMS.
How to find more about the Sender ID in SMS
When you a message from any provider a sender ID is displayed as a prefix. For example- VK-HDFCBK. The format is such when a BULK SMS facility is used. So here is how to decipher the BULK SMS sender id.
The First character is a service provider name, i.e. which is used to send the SMS. The Second Character is the state or Service area code from where the SMS was sent. In the above example, VK-HDFCBK means Vodafone operator was used, and origin was from Kolkata.
Service Provider Codes:
| Service Provider | Code |
|---|---|
| Aircel, Dishnet Wireless | D |
| Bharti Airtel | A |
| BSNL | B |
| BPL Mobile/Loop Telecom | L |
| Datacom Solutions | C |
| HFCL Infotel | H |
| Idea Cellular | I |
| MTNL | M |
| Reliance Communications | R |
| Reliance Telecom | E |
| S tel | S |
| Shyam Telecom | Y |
| Spice Telecom | P |
| Swan Telecom | W |
| Tata Teleservices | T |
| Unitech Group | U |
| Vodafone Group | V |
Service Area Code
| Service Area | Code |
| Andhra Pradesh | A |
| Assam | S |
| Bihar | B |
| Delhi | D |
| Gujarat | G |
| Haryana | H |
| Himachal Pradesh | I |
| Jammu & Kashmir | J |
| Karnataka | X |
| Kerala | L |
| Kolkata | K |
| Madhya Pradesh | Y |
| Maharashtra | Z |
| Mumbai | M |
| North East | N |
| Orissa | O |
| Punjab | P |
| Rajasthan | R |
| Tamil Nadu | T |
| UP-East | E |
| UP-West | W |
| West Bengal | V |
To find out the origin of the sender id, break the code into two to find region or sender. Though the above list might not cover all of them, you have the idea why there was no number displayed.
If you are getting a lot of promotional messages even though you have registered your number using DND feature, then find out how you can complain about such telemarketers.
Note: If you are using anything other than the default SMS app on your phone, the chances are that you will not see this format. Those apps only display the primary name. So, for example, VK-HDFCBK displays as HDFCBK for me in the SMS organizer app.
