Fall is here, which means pumpkin-flavored everything and something else that’s lingering right around the corner before the holiday season: the annual wireless carrier freezes.
If you’re a brand interested in getting started with SMS before 2025, these carrier freezes are very important to keep in mind. Keep reading to learn more about what the carrier freezes could mean for your new SMS program, and how Vibes can help you avoid them as a potential barrier to launch.
What is a Wireless Carrier Freeze?
A wireless carrier freeze is a deadline for when the major carrier networks (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon) and GoogleVoice temporarily stop the following activities:
- Provisioning (i.e. activating) any new short codes for companies to send SMS or MMS messages to their customers
- Handling any updates to existing short codes, such as migrating codes and directing the message traffic from one aggregator to another
- Reviewing and certifying campaigns submitted to The Campaign Registry
When Does the Wireless Carrier Freeze Happen?
The U.S. carriers typically have two freeze periods, the first around the Thanksgiving holiday and the other around the Christmas holiday.
The length of these freeze periods can range anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.
Why Should Brands Be Concerned About These Freezes?
If you’re a business that’s considering expanding on your SMS campaigns, or if you’re a brand finally ready to start using SMS as a marketing channel, depending on when you get going the carrier freezes could prevent you from getting your campaigns up and running until 2025 (yes, if you’re a retail brand, this means missing out on the holiday season).
What are the Freeze Dates for the U.S. Carriers?
Each carrier runs on a different timeline in terms of announcing their freeze dates (if they do, in fact, make a formal announcement) as well as when the actual freezes are. Here’s how everything panned out at the end of 2023 / beginning of 2024:
The carriers have not announced their 2024 freeze dates yet, but we expect them to be similar to last year's dates.
Based on previous freezes, we estimate that the U.S. carriers will start to announce their provisioning freeze dates around the end of October 2024.
If you send or intend to send SMS messages to consumers in Canada, keep in mind that the Canadian carriers also have freeze periods, which operate on completely separate timelines from the U.S. carriers.
How Vibes Provisions and Migrates Short Codes Fast and Effectively
For U.S. short codes the process to provision a new short code or migrate an existing short code can take weeks, if not months - that is, if you choose to work with a non Tier 1 aggregator.
As the only independent Tier 1 aggregator in the U.S., we have direct relationships with the carriers that enables us to manage short code provisioning, migrations and campaign submissions on your behalf without the involvement of any third party. Vibes also enforces the short code compliance regulations set by the CTIA and individual carriers - any aggregator without direct connections to the carriers can’t handle these intricacies on your behalf.
For you, this means an unbeatable time to market - we can get short codes provisioned or migrated in as little as 3 weeks, 3x faster than other SMS aggregators who typically need between 2-6 months.
Our carrier relationships also result in us being the first to know about any news that may impact your mobile messaging and services - like carrier freeze dates! We plan to update this very article with the upcoming carrier freeze dates as soon as they are announced.
The Bottom Line
If you are still interested in launching SMS in time for the holiday season, you still have time to get ahead of those carrier freezes - and there’s even more time on your side if you choose to partner with Vibes.
Don’t wait until January 2025 to start your SMS program, reach out to us today so we can help you get launched quickly and effectively before the holidays!
