More about A2P
How do I change the sending number (FROM number) of a text or voicemail?
How do I make our PastorsLine number our default?
What is A2P?
Application to Person (A2P) is a number verification system introduced by the (mainly) U.S. mobile carriers. The goal is to reduce spam.
What does A2P mean for you? (Why use your local # instead of the PL shared #s?)
Since all our PastorsLine numbers are A2P approved, this means there is a low risk of your SMS being flagged as spam.
The main reason we were using the PastorsLine shared shortcode and PastorsLine shared toll-free number was to reduce the risk of your SMS being flagged as spam. With the A2P system, this should now be irrelevant.
You may, of course, still use the shared PL numbers. However, since they are shared, your messages may be queued behind other churches during peak times.
Here is an example:
Let's say we have 100 churches using the PL shared short code number (77411). The maximum SMS sending rate for this short code is 100 texts per second. Each of those 100 churches are sending thousands of texts. What happens to YOUR texts?
Depending on where you are in the queue (line) for using the shortcode (when it is your turn to send your SMS), your texts could be delayed by hours.
This works in the same way for the PL shared toll-free number.
As we mentioned above, the PL shared numbers were needed during the times of heavy carrier spam filtering. The A2P system was put in place to verify local numbers, so mobile carriers would not have to filter for spam so vigorously.
To avoid the potential PL shared number bottlenecks (long sending delays), we recommend using your local number.
In fact, we suggest making it your default.
Another reason is the legality of using a shared short code with multiple companies when broadcasting. Due to issues, the regulators are phasing it out. We will continue to support it as long as possible.
The third reason is that even if you reserve the short code keyword, one of your people might misspell it and get to another church's autoreply. For example: you reserved 'kidz' because 'kids' was taken. One of your people texts 'kids' (or the autocorrect 'helps' by changing kidz to kids). They will end up at the church who reserved that keyword. Similarly, we have the opposite. Someone from another church might mis-type 'kids' as 'kidz' and end up at your church...causing someone to have to figure out who this person is!
More about A2P?
To read more about this, you may wish to check out our first update to you. This explains everything in detail: https://pastorsline.com/update/shared-short-codes-here-today-gone-tomorrow/
Our next update informs about the continuing changes to the system: https://pastorsline.com/update/a2p-10dlc-more-info-pricing-changes/
How do I change the sending number (FROM number) of a text or voicemail?
Check out this helpdesk article: https://help.pastorsline.com/en/articles/4303377-switching-between-multiple-numbers
How do I make our PastorsLine local number our default?
This helpdesk article shows you how to change your default number: https://help.pastorsline.com/en/articles/6117661-v3-switching-my-primary-default-assigned-number