Text messaging to specific African country never delivers - Amazon SNS

Question

We use Amazon SNS to send OTP SMS to a number of countries. Recently (maybe last 2 months), all SMS to KE (especially Safaricom) are never delivered. Customers confirm this in all cases. On the AWS side it says "Message has been accepted by phone carrier" and that's the only update that ever happens. Never goes further and never fails with any issues. We're charged in each case.

We have a basic Sender ID for KE which seems to have applied automatically when AWS End User Messaging was launched, and I assume it's some kind of sender ID issue that's blocking the SMS, but we have no way of raising the issue. It seems like KE does not support SMS anymore without registering an official Sender ID in the country, yet AWS aren't aware of this and are happily charging customers for the attempt to send an SMS that will never be delivered. Is there anyway to escalate this without paying a large amount of "official support"? Is the "Sender ID" registration on AWS not official for KE?

Ahmed · Answer

You're correct in suspecting this is a Sender ID registration issue. Kenya has implemented stricter SMS regulations recently, requiring proper Sender ID registration with local authorities before messages can be delivered. Therefore support for sender ID registration in Kenya is for international companies only. We do not currently support local Kenya companies to register sender IDs.

The "Message has been accepted by phone carrier" status means AWS successfully handed off your message to the carrier, but the carrier is likely blocking delivery due to unregistered Sender ID.

Please follow the following guide and cut a ticket with AWS support if needed.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sms-voice/latest/userguide/registrations-kenya.html

Text messaging to specific African country never delivers - Amazon SNS

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