How do I get a six-character sender ID?
You choose the six-character header, the operator confirms availability on DLT, and SMSLocal handles propagation across all Indian carriers within 24–72 hours.
Sender headers in India are not first-come-first-served globally — they're allocated per Principal Entity. Two brands can share the same six letters so long as the operator can disambiguate by DLT registration.
Allocation rules
- Exactly six characters, all uppercase letters A–Z.
- Must be a sensible abbreviation of your registered brand name.
- No special characters, no digits, no operator names (AIRTEL, JIO etc. are reserved).
- One free header per DLT category per Principal Entity.
Registration takes 24–72 hours once you submit the request on your operator's DLT portal. SMSLocal can submit on your behalf if you grant us access during onboarding.
Browse other help categories
Getting started
Create your SMSLocal account, add INR credits to your wallet, complete DLT registration, and send your first compliant SMS, WhatsApp, or OTP in under fifteen minutes.
WhatsApp Business API
Complete guide to WhatsApp Business API — onboarding, Meta template approval, chatbot flow setup, shared team inbox, quality rating management, and conversation analytics.
AI WhatsApp Agents
Train your AI WhatsApp agent on your own knowledge, sync your product catalogue, configure handoff triggers, and serve customers across twelve Indian languages.
OTP & Transactional
Priority routing to the fastest carrier, automatic retry and failover logic, idempotency keys to prevent double-sends, and WhatsApp OTP fallback when SMS is slow or fails.
Did this article help?
If something isn't clear or the steps don't match what you're seeing, tell us and we'll fix the doc the same day.