SMS was never architected to become a regulatory maze. Its simplicity, ubiquity, and reliability made it a uniquely effective conduit for business-to-consumer communication. Yet what was once direct and frictionless has been fragmented, burdened, and rendered opaque—driven by a combination of regulatory ambiguity, carrier-imposed gatekeeping, and inconsistent implementation practices. This analysis examines how regulatory gaps, carrier-driven inconsistency, and an opaque compliance ecosystem have collectively undermined the functionality and accessibility of A2P messaging.

1 A2P: Conceptual Simplicity, Operational Complexity

Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging originated as an extension of the personal use case: sending timely, purpose-driven communications such as confirmations, alerts, reminders, and product upsells. Its early promise of simplicity and immediacy stood in stark contrast to the increasingly fragmented ecosystem that would follow, where operational complexity gradually eclipsed user-centric design. In its formative years, the use of short codes—while financially prohibitive for some—provided a coherent framework. Vetting was centralized, throughput expectations were managed, and delivery was generally dependable.

However, the introduction of toll-free SMS and subsequently 10DLC (10-digit long code) systems diversified the channel landscape while simultaneously sowing the seeds of fragmentation. Instead of enhancing access, this evolution catalyzed a descent into inconsistency—manifesting in unpredictable message deliverability, conflicting onboarding requirements across carriers, and a general erosion of transparency for both developers and end users alike.

2 Carrier-Driven Balkanization

Mobile network operators (MNO’s) in the United States have constructed disparate compliance regimes for A2P messaging—each imposing distinct onboarding procedures, pricing models, and content filtering mechanisms that materially degrade message deliverability, increase implementation friction, and add operational overhead for businesses seeking to engage customers at scale. Organizations attempting to utilize 10DLC must now navigate:

• Brand registration via The Campaign Registry or distinct approval registrations for each MNO
• A menu of campaign types with unclear distinctions
• Non-uniform fees across carriers, layered per campaign and number
• Throughput constraints linked to opaque reputational metrics
• Message delivery inconsistencies and content rejection absent recourse

What once required a technical integration and strategic intent now demands bureaucratic dexterity and legal oversight. It is a patchwork that privileges incumbents and frustrates innovation—raising barriers to entry for startups, deterring small-to-medium enterprises from participating, and reinforcing the market dominance of entities already optimized to navigate regulatory intricacies.

3 An Undefined Policy Landscape

The present regulatory status of SMS is ill-defined. While voice telephony is designated a lifeline service and protected accordingly, SMS exists in a deregulatory void. There are, as a result:

• No delivery guarantees or escalation pathways
• No statutory appeals process for wrongful filtering
• No uniform consent architecture
• No pricing transparency or regulatory cost control

Some oversight is warranted. Markets do not self-regulate well in domains where asymmetries of power, data, or harm exist. Yet, there is a marked distinction between consumer protection and procedural opacity. When incumbents influence policy design to elevate complexity, they are no longer regulating—they are gatekeeping.

4 A Lifeline in Modern Communication

The reality is that consumers rely on SMS, particularly in emergencies or time-sensitive contexts. Text messaging functions as a modern lifeline—not just because it’s fast and reliable, but because it meets the realities of contemporary life. In a world defined by multitasking, back-to-back meetings, and digital overload, my wife knows that I might not be able to answer a phone call. But a text? I’ll see it. When my wife texted me “call me, emergency,” I saw it immediately—precisely because it wasn’t buried beneath newsletters, transactional noise, or social media chatter. SMS still cuts through. Email does not.

5 Messaging as a Small Business Tool

SMS remains one of the last affordable digital marketing tools available to businesses that aren’t backed by venture capital or private equity. For companies that can’t compete for premium Google AdWords keywords or afford Meta’s behavioral ad targeting, A2P messaging offers a rare chance to communicate with customers directly. But that opportunity is eroding. What used to be a cost-effective option is now burdened with fees and procedural roadblocks:

• Compliance overheads disincentivize participation
• Legal burden scales faster than message volume
• High-value transactional content is misclassified as spam
• Carriers extract revenue while disavowing accountability

This regime amounts to a de facto tax on legitimate communication—a regressive toll that disadvantages those without regulatory fluency or enterprise-level budgets.

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6 The Spam Paradox

Critics argue this is the cost of minimizing spam. But the analysis is reductive. Spam, while annoying, is also a symptom of access. In some cases, what is labeled as spam may be a legitimate message from a small business or local organization without access to sophisticated ad tools or audience targeting platforms. Conversely, legitimate platforms have also been used to disseminate manipulative content under the guise of personalization—for example, Facebook’s targeted political ads during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, which leveraged granular behavioral data to drive emotional responses and influence public opinion. This tension reveals how blanket anti-spam measures may unintentionally suppress equitable participation in the digital economy. It enables communication for actors excluded from algorithmically curated walled gardens. It is imperfect, but it is accessible.

7 What We Get in Exchange

In contrast, digital advertising monopolies have engineered dopamine-triggering, behaviorally targeted campaigns. These cost more, manipulate more, and exclude more—as demonstrated in a growing body of research, including findings from the American Psychological Association and studies published in journals like Nature Human Behaviour, which show strong correlations between algorithmic personalization and negative psychological outcomes such as addiction, anxiety, and compulsive engagement. Spam may be inefficient, but it is not inherently extractive. And in a media ecosystem where ethical reach is increasingly monetized, a less elegant tool may be better than no tool at all.

8 Market Winners, Public Losers

• Carriers accrue fees while operationalizing opacity.
• Aggregators monetize compliance complexity.
• Major brands absorb cost and scale bureaucracy into competitive advantage.
• Small firms, civic entities, and niche players? Priced out, screened out, and slowed down.

Mobile network operators (MNOs) have effectively used their public image as defenders against spam to justify monetizing A2P messaging. By positioning surcharges as a form of consumer protection, they’ve framed a revenue-generating mechanism as a public good. But in reality, these charges act as a private tax on communication. The costs, often amounting to .3 to 1 penny per message, adds up quickly —particularly for high-volume senders. For a mid-sized business sending 500,000 messages a month, these surcharges can easily amount to tens of thousands of dollars annually—effectively a fixed toll on scale and communication reach. And because carriers retain full control over message delivery to their subscribers, businesses have no alternative: there is no way to send a text message to a U.S. mobile user without going through—and paying—these gatekeepers.

This lack of competition is particularly troubling given that three carriers control over 90% of the U.S. mobile market. These firms have successfully lobbied to preserve their regulatory independence, allowing them to write and enforce rules that align with their financial interests while facing no meaningful accountability. In any functional market, competition provides a check against excessive pricing and exclusionary practices. In its absence, critical services—especially those foundational to communication—should be held to standards of transparency and fairness through appropriate regulatory oversight.

A 2022 survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found that over 40% of small businesses had either delayed or abandoned messaging campaigns due to compliance confusion or prohibitive registration fees—highlighting how the current system imposes a disproportionate burden on those least equipped to navigate it.

9 Toward a Rational Framework

A functional A2P messaging environment must be intelligible, equitable, and scalable. Reform could include:

• A publicly accountable registry for business messaging
• Consistent throughput rules across carriers (e.g., unify T-Mobile’s daily caps and AT&T’s messages-per-second models)
• Uniform carrier surcharges and fees with caps
• Mandated delivery transparency with dispute resolution channels
• Consent rules co-developed with civil society and user groups

But procedural clarity must not devolve into centralized control without accountability. Who decides these frameworks matters. Governance without representation risks institutionalizing exclusion. A more participatory governance structure could not only improve policy legitimacy but also promote outcomes that balance innovation, competition, and consumer protection. A more inclusive framework should ensure the participation of small and medium-sized businesses, nonprofit organizations, independent developers, and civil society groups—those directly affected by policy outcomes but typically underrepresented in rulemaking.

10 Conclusion: Restore Functionality Before Scaling Further

We are on the brink of rendering SMS—a proven, trusted channel—unusable for those who need it most. In an era of algorithmic opacity and attention monopolies, text messaging offers a rare counterexample: directness, clarity, and wide accessibility.

A2P must not become a case study in how to bureaucratize a working system out of existence. It can be fixed, but only if stakeholders acknowledge the difference between regulation that protects users and regulation that protects incumbents.

The choice isn’t between spam and safety. It’s between complexity and coherence, between access and attrition. And the longer we wait, the more irreparable the damage becomes.