France : Features & Restrictions – Knowledgebase

Sender ID:

All forms of Sender ID are supported in France, subject to strict regulations. Which Sender ID you need to use is dictated by the content you wish to send.

Numeric Sender IDs:
French networks do not allow numeric sender IDs that are not long virtual numbers, to avoid spoofing of identities. Any numeric sender IDs that are not a Nexmo virtual number will be automatically replaced by a shortcode except for the following networks:
- For LycaMobile, all Sender IDs will be replaced with a local French Number.
- For Virgin (OMEA) Mobile, dynamic Numeric and AlphaNumeric Sender IDs are allowed.

Nexmo virtual numbers are available in the Numbers tab of the Nexmo Dashboard (only for P2P traffic for France).

Alpha Sender IDs:
SMS sent to French networks using alpha sender IDs are subject to the following restrictions:
- The carriers SFR, Bouygues and Orange will only accept messages with alpha sender IDs for delivery between 8am and 8pm local time Monday to Saturday.
- Special characters in sender IDs are not allowed and will either be replaced by a character escape sequence or the message will be rejected.
- Unicode is supported for SMS sent from alpha sender IDs, however it cannot be guaranteed all times.
- For all networks any alpha sender IDs containing the network names (i.e. 'sfr') will be filtered and nor delivered.
- SMS sent to network Free (20815) will have the sender ID changed to a Short Code.

Please note that the above restrictions do NOT apply if you are sending using a Nexmo French long virtual number (LVN) as sender ID. For notes on LVN restrictions, please see the Virtual numbers section at the bottom of this article.

Content:

A2P:

Due to the regulations around the use of long virtual numbers we recommend to customers who are sending both “notification-only messages” (that do not require a response) and “notifications-requesting-response messages” to differentiate the sender as follows to make sure your traffic does not get blocked:

Use sender = {your brand} : for “notification only” messages, i.e. that do not require a response.
Use sender = {your long virtual number} : for messages that you want your users to be able to reply to, other than for unsubscription purposes, i.e. STOP.
- NB. Outbound messages from French Long Virtual Numbers are throttled at 1 SMS every 2 seconds.

Marketing content:

For all marketing traffic you must add 'STOP au 36179' at the end of the SMS or messages will be rejected.

Unicode:

For Orange, SFR, Free Mobile: Unicode is supported
For Bouygues Telecom

Specific unicode are not supported (for more detailed information on this, please see the list in the attachment at the bottom).

If you do not know which network within France you are sending to we recommend you to not use accents or specific unicode if successful delivery is essential.

Other features/restrictions of note:

Time constraints:
The carriers SFR, Bouygues and Orange will only accept messages for delivery between 8am and 8pm local time Monday to Saturday unless you send from a French long virtual number.

Maximum Throughput:
Outbound messages from French Long Virtual Numbers are throttled at 1 SMS every 2 seconds.

M-2-M:
Currently we are unable to support machine to machine traffic via our french routes.

Delivery Receipts:
DLRs are fully supported and considered reliable.

Links:

Global SMS Features Overview (Outbound only)

Global SMS Numbers Features Overview

Virtual Numbers:

French long virtual numbers may only be used for Person to Person content messaging. This is a regulatory requirement.

Marketing and one-way A2P content is strictly not allowed and our Carrier will block high volumes (over approx 500 SMS per LVN per day) of message attempts originating from the same virtual number.

Outbound messages from French Long Virtual Numbers are throttled at 1 SMS every 2 seconds.