Information Madness

In continuing discussion about Indian Short Code policy with Nikhil @ ContentSutra, I found out the actual policy information.  So @Nikhil, you can refer to it here or I have provided the link of the actual document at the bottom of this article.

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In supersession of this office O.M. of even No. dated 29th November, 2004 on the subject mentioned above, the undersigned is directed to state that for the proper conduct of telegraph, the Competent Authority has decided that all the Unified Access / Basic / Cellular Mobile Service providers must use the level ‘5’ for allocation of short codes to the Content Providers including SMS based services within their network. All other terms and conditions will be as per the guidelines issued in this regard. 

Below are the guidelines for allocation of Short Codes to the content providers including SMS based services. 

• All the Access Service providers must use the level ‘5’ for short codes to their content providers including SMS based services within their network.
• All the existing 4 digit short codes are to be prefixed by ‘5’ to convert the same to 5 digit codes.
• All the existing 5 and 6 digit short codes are to be migrated to 5 digit codes by replacing the first digit or first two digits respectively by ‘5’ and so on. Dispute if any shall be brought to the notice of DOT for final allocation, whose decision shall be final and binding to all the stakeholders.
• Parallel working of old short codes with the new codes is allowed for six months from the date of issue of these Guidelines.

Here is the Document link @ DOT

I am sure it would create a big trouble for all SMS based service providers as I have seen 6 or 7 digit short codes as well as Airtel is using 3 digit short codes. I would love to compile a list of all Existing Short Codes and new Short Codes. It would be a big help for those who wants to refer the updates. I will try to get the list if possible from somewhere.