DLT Registration Guide for SMS in India

You only need to register on one DLT platform — the registration is valid across all Indian telecom operators. Airtel DLT is recommended for fast approvals (1-3 business days). Jio TrueConnect is the most widely used platform with a comprehensive portal. Vodafone Idea (Vilpower) was one of the earliest platforms and has wide acceptance. Smartping by Satzilio Telecom offers a modern registration interface. Choose based on approval speed, portal usability, and your preference. See our detailed comparison above.

Yes, you can register on multiple DLT platforms, but it is not required. Registering on one platform is sufficient — your entity registration, sender IDs, and templates are synchronized across all operators through the DLT blockchain. However, some businesses register on a second platform as a backup or for faster template approvals.

The required documents vary by entity type. For private limited companies: PAN card, GST certificate, Certificate of Incorporation, and Letter of Authorization. For partnerships: partnership deed and PAN. For proprietorships: PAN, GST, and Aadhaar of the proprietor. For government entities: official letter on department letterhead. All entities need an authorized signatory's ID proof (Aadhaar/passport) and a company email address. Visit our entity registration guide for complete document lists by entity type.

Entity registration typically takes 1-7 business days depending on the platform. Airtel has the fastest approvals (1-3 days), while others may take up to 7 days. Sender ID (header) approval takes 1-3 days after entity approval. Template approval usually takes 24-72 hours. The entire end-to-end process from entity registration to sending your first DLT-compliant SMS takes approximately 5-15 business days.

A Principal Entity (PE) is the business that owns the SMS content — for example, a bank sending OTP messages or an e-commerce company sending order confirmations. A Telemarketer (TM) is a third-party service provider that sends SMS on behalf of a Principal Entity — for example, an SMS aggregator or marketing agency. The DLT ecosystem requires a valid PE-TM chain — the PE must share their Entity ID with the TM, and the TM links it on the DLT platform. Messages are only delivered when this PE-TM chain is verified during scrubbing. Most businesses should register as a Principal Entity and share their Entity ID with SpringEdge (the Telemarketer) to complete the chain. See our entity registration guide for details.

DLT platforms classify templates into four categories: Transactional — triggered by a user action (OTP, order confirmation, payment alert), delivered 24/7 including to DND numbers. Promotional — marketing messages, delivered only 9 AM-9 PM, filtered against NDNC registry. Service Implicit — informational messages to existing customers based on an existing relationship. Service Explicit — messages to customers who have explicitly opted in. See our template approval guide for details.

You cannot directly transfer a DLT registration from one operator to another. However, since DLT is a distributed blockchain, your entity registration on one platform is recognized across all operators. If you want to switch platforms, you would need to create a new registration on the target platform. Your existing sender IDs and templates would need to be re-registered on the new platform.

Messages sent without proper DLT registration will be blocked at the operator level during the DLT scrubbing process. The scrubbing checks verify that the sender entity ID, sender ID (header), and content template are all registered and approved on the DLT platform. If any of these fail verification, the message is rejected and will not be delivered. Additionally, operators may penalize non-compliant entities.

SpringEdge simplifies DLT compliance in several ways. Our platform automatically validates your DLT entity ID, sender IDs, and template IDs before sending messages. We provide real-time error reporting if any DLT parameter fails validation. Our support team can guide you through the entire registration process on any DLT platform. Once registered, simply configure your DLT credentials in the SpringEdge dashboard and our API handles compliance automatically.

TRAI now requires all DLT templates to use typed variable tags instead of the generic {#var#} placeholder. The approved tags are: {#numeric#} for numbers (OTPs, amounts), {#alphanumeric#} for text and IDs, {#url#} for website links, {#urlott#} for OTT/app links, {#cbn#} for callback numbers, and {#email#} for email addresses. New templates must use these typed tags, and existing templates using {#var#} are being phased out. See our template approval guide for details.

All DLT platforms charge a registration fee of Rs 5,000 + GST per year. Header and template registrations are free on all platforms.

Log in to your DLT portal (Jio TrueConnect, Airtel, Vilpower, or Smartping) and navigate to the entity management or registration status section. Your registration status will show as "Pending", "Approved", or "Rejected". If approved, you will see your 19-digit Entity ID which is required for configuring your SpringEdge API account. If rejected, the portal will show the rejection reason — typically incomplete or mismatched KYC documents.