Nigerian DND List

Did you know that, in 2016, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) mandated the Telecom operators in Nigeria to implement a Do-Not-Disturb (DND) list? The DND list blocks all SMS, sent from third-party services, to phone numbers on the list. While this is a laudable approach to the menace of unsolicited SMS in Nigeria, it has also created a lot headache for legitimate third-party services that are trying to send SMS to Nigerian phone numbers.

DND List Options

There are two options for the DND list:

Fully Blocked (Default)
This allows customers to Opt Out totally from receiving third-party SMS.

Partially Blocked
This option allows customers to filter service categories for third-party SMS they wish to receive. Any category not selected is blocked.

Not being able to send notification SMS to these phone numbers is one thing, but not being able to send OTP can be a whole lot more damaging for businesses. For industries that often requires users to verify their phone numbers (economy sharing, on-demand, fintech, e-commerce, etc.), Nigeria can be a tricky market to enter and operate in.

DND List Solution

Thankfully, some SMS providers have a solution. To cater to the need of individuals and corporate organizations that have express permission to contact phone numbers on DND by SMS, a provision has been made to deliver their messages via a Corporate Route. Corporate Route allows you send SMS to phone numbers on DND provided you have the expressed permission to do so.

Surprisingly, not all of the well-known SMS providers on the market have the ability to send SMS over a Corporate Route, so companies need to be careful when choosing a provider. At RingCaptcha, we’re connected with 10+ SMS providers and actually have multiple options for sending SMS on Corporate Routes. This means that should there be an issue with the Corporate Route your Nigerian traffic is being sent through, our system automatically reroutes your traffic through a different Corporate Route.

To get access to the Corporate Route, your SMS provider will need to register you. You will need to provide a No Objection Certificate (NOC) letter and your company’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) certificate. RingCaptcha has an NOC template that takes just a few minutes to complete, and RingCaptcha will get you on multiple Corporate Routes with a single registration instead of you having to go through this arduous process for multiple Corporate Route, which you will need for redundancy purposes.. Registration generally takes 5 to 10 days from submission of these documents.

Removal From DND List

For Nigerian phone subscribers on the DND list, they can remove themselves by doing the following:

For MTN Lines Text STOP to 2442 and after 5 Minutes Text ALLOW to 2442.

For AIRTEL lines Text STOP to 2442 and after 5 Minutes Text OUT to 2442.

For GLO Lines Text STOP to 2442 and after 5 Minutes Text CANCEL to 2442.

For ETISALAT Lines Text STOP to 2442 and after 5 Minutes Text START to 2442.

To get started sending SMS to DND phone numbers, contact our support team (support@ringcaptcha.com) or write to us on our Intercom chat in the bottom right corner of your screen.