Messaging
A2P 10DLC
Application-to-Person 10 Digit Long Code. A system in the US allowing businesses to send SMS via standard phone numbers.
Tech Dictionary & Entity Index
Tech Glossary
Demystifying enterprise messaging, CPaaS protocols, AI architectures, and software engineering terms.
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Showing 84 of 84 terms
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Marketing
AEO
Answer Engine Optimization. Structuring content so it directly and concisely answers user questions, making it easy for search and AI systems to extract, feature, and cite as the answer.
AI
Agentic AI
AI designed to act with autonomy, breaking down goals into steps, calling tools, and adapting based on results, as opposed to purely reactive question-and-answer models.
AI
AI Agent
An AI system that can autonomously plan and take multi-step actions toward a goal, using tools, APIs, and memory rather than only answering a single prompt.
Development
API
Application Programming Interface. A bridge that allows two software programs to communicate with each other.
Voice
ASR
Automatic Speech Recognition. Technology that transcribes spoken language into text, enabling voice bots and IVR systems to understand and act on what callers say rather than only keypad input.
Marketing
BIMI
Brand Indicators for Message Identification. An email standard that displays a brand's verified logo next to authenticated messages in the inbox, improving recognition and trust for senders with strong DMARC enforcement.
Marketing
Bounce Rate
The percentage of sent emails that could not be delivered. Hard bounces reflect invalid addresses while soft bounces are temporary failures; high bounce rates damage sender reputation and deliverability.
Messaging
BSP
Business Solution Provider. An official Meta partner that provides businesses access to the WhatsApp Business API, along with onboarding, template management, messaging infrastructure, and support.
Development
Canonical URL
The preferred version of a web page declared via a canonical tag, telling search engines which URL to index when duplicate or similar content exists across multiple addresses.
Voice
Click-to-Call
A feature that lets a user initiate a phone call to a business with a single tap or click on a website, app, or ad, often routed through cloud voice infrastructure for tracking and analytics.
Infrastructure
Cloud Computing
Delivery of computing services—servers, storage, databases, networking—over the Internet.
Messaging
Concatenated SMS
A message longer than a single 160-character (or 70-character Unicode) segment, split across multiple SMS parts and reassembled on the recipient's handset to appear as one continuous message. Each segment is billed individually.
Compliance
Content Template
A pre-approved message format registered on the DLT platform with fixed text and variable fields. Commercial SMS in India must match a registered template, preventing unapproved or spoofed content.
Messaging
Conversation Category
WhatsApp's billing classification for business messaging: marketing, utility, authentication, and service. Each category is priced differently and governs what kind of content a business may send within a conversation.
Development
Core Web Vitals
A set of Google metrics measuring real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness), and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). They influence search ranking.
Messaging
CPaaS
Communications Platform as a Service. A cloud-based platform that enables developers to add real-time communications features (voice, video, messaging) to their own applications without building backend infrastructure.
Business
CRM
Customer Relationship Management. Technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers.
Compliance
Data Residency
The requirement that data be stored and processed within a specific geographic or legal jurisdiction, an important consideration for enterprise and regulated buyers evaluating cloud and communications providers.
Security
DKIM
DomainKeys Identified Mail. An email authentication method that attaches a cryptographic signature to messages so receiving servers can verify the message was genuinely sent from the claimed domain and not altered in transit.
Messaging
DLR
Delivery Receipt. The status confirmation returned by a mobile operator indicating whether a submitted SMS was delivered, failed, or is pending, enabling real-time delivery tracking and analytics.
Compliance
DLT
Distributed Ledger Technology. In India, the blockchain-based registration system mandated by TRAI on which every business must register its entity, headers (sender IDs), and content templates before sending commercial SMS.
Security
DMARC
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. An email policy layer built on SPF and DKIM that tells receivers how to handle messages that fail authentication and provides reporting on abuse.
Compliance
DND
Do Not Disturb. A subscriber preference registry (managed in India via the NCPR under TRAI) that blocks promotional communications to numbers that have opted out, while still permitting transactional and service messages.
Compliance
DPDP Act
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The national data-protection law governing how organizations collect, process, store, and safeguard the personal data of individuals in India, including consent and breach obligations.
Voice
DTMF
Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency. The tone signals generated when a caller presses phone keypad keys, used by IVR systems to capture menu selections and route calls.
Marketing
E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google's framework for assessing content quality, emphasizing credentialed authors, first-hand experience, and verifiable trust signals.
AI
Embedding
A numerical vector representation of text, images, or other data that captures semantic meaning, enabling similarity search, clustering, and retrieval, and forming the backbone of RAG and semantic search.
AI
Fine-tuning
The process of further training a pre-trained AI model on a specific dataset so it adapts to a particular domain, tone, or task, improving accuracy for specialized use cases.
Messaging
Flash SMS
A class-0 SMS that displays immediately on the recipient's screen without being saved to the inbox by default. It is used for urgent, high-visibility alerts such as security notifications.
AI
Generative AI
A type of artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, or other media in response to prompts.
Marketing
GEO
Generative Engine Optimization. The practice of optimizing content to be cited and quoted by AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews, focused on being the source rather than only ranking.
Messaging
Green Tick
The green verified badge (Meta Verified) shown next to a WhatsApp business name, confirming that Meta has authenticated the brand as a notable, genuine business. It increases recipient trust and reply rates.
Messaging
Grey Route
An unofficial or non-compliant SMS delivery path that exploits pricing loopholes between operators. Grey routes are cheaper but unreliable, often filtered or blocked, and carry compliance and delivery-failure risk for businesses.
AI
Guardrails
Rules, filters, and controls placed around an AI system to keep its outputs safe, accurate, on-policy, and within scope, covering content moderation, factual grounding, and refusal of disallowed requests.
AI
Hallucination
When an AI model generates confident but false or unsupported information. Grounding techniques such as RAG and source citation are used to reduce hallucination in production systems.
Development
Hreflang
An HTML attribute that tells search engines the language and regional targeting of a page, ensuring users are served the correct language or country version in search results.
AI
Human-in-the-Loop
A design in which humans review, approve, or correct AI outputs at key decision points, combining automation efficiency with human judgment and accountability.
Development
Idempotency
A property of an API operation where making the same request multiple times produces the same result as making it once. It prevents duplicate charges or duplicate messages when a client safely retries a request.
Voice
IVR
Interactive Voice Response. An automated telephony system that interacts with callers through voice prompts and keypad (DTMF) input, routing calls or delivering information without a live agent.
Infrastructure
Latency
The delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer.
Marketing
Lead Generation
The initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business.
AI
LLM
Large Language Model. A deep learning algorithm that can recognize, summarize, translate, predict, and generate text.
Development
llms.txt
A proposed plain-text standard file placed at a website's root that provides AI systems a curated, machine-readable guide to the site's most important content, improving how large language models discover and cite it.
Messaging
Long Code
A standard 10-digit virtual mobile number used for two-way business SMS and voice. Long codes support lower throughput than short codes but enable personal, conversational interactions.
AI
MCP
Model Context Protocol. An open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external tools, data sources, and services in a consistent way, enabling agents to call functions such as sending an SMS or querying a database as native tools.
Messaging
Message Template
A pre-approved WhatsApp message format (formerly HSM) required to initiate conversations or message users outside the 24-hour session window. Templates are reviewed by Meta to prevent spam and abuse.
Voice
Missed Call Service
A voice solution, popular in India, where a user gives a missed call to a published number to trigger an action such as a callback, verification, or opt-in, offering a zero-cost interaction for the caller.
Infrastructure
Multi-tenancy
A software architecture in which a single application instance serves multiple isolated customers (tenants), each with private data and configuration, forming the foundation of scalable SaaS and white-label platforms.
AI
NLP
Natural Language Processing. The field of AI concerned with enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language, underpinning chatbots, translation, sentiment analysis, and voice assistants.
Marketing
Omnichannel
A cross-channel content strategy that improves the user experience and drives better relationships across points of contact.
Compliance
Opt-in
The explicit, recorded consent a user gives before a business may send them messages. Opt-in is a regulatory and platform requirement across SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, and email, and is central to deliverability and trust.
Compliance
Principal Entity
Under India's DLT framework, the registered business (the brand) that owns the sender headers and content templates used for commercial messaging, distinct from the telemarketer or aggregator that transmits on its behalf.
Security
Prompt Injection
A security attack in which malicious instructions are hidden inside content an AI model processes, attempting to override its intended behavior. It is a modern risk for AI agents that read untrusted web or document data.
AI
RAG
Retrieval-Augmented Generation. An AI technique that retrieves relevant documents from a knowledge base and supplies them to a language model at query time, grounding responses in factual, up-to-date, source-attributable content.
Development
Rate Limiting
A control that caps how many requests a client can make to an API within a time window, protecting infrastructure from overload and abuse while ensuring fair usage across customers.
Messaging
RBM
RCS Business Messaging. The business-facing layer of RCS that lets verified brands send rich, interactive, app-like messages, complete with logos, carousels, and suggested-action buttons, inside the native messaging inbox.
Messaging
RCS
Rich Communication Services. A communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages.
Business
SaaS
Software as a Service. A software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.
Development
Schema Markup
Structured data added to web pages using the Schema.org vocabulary (often as JSON-LD) that helps search engines and AI systems understand page content, enabling rich results and better retrieval.
Development
SDK
Software Development Kit. A collection of software development tools in one installable package.
Messaging
Sender ID
The alphanumeric or numeric identifier that appears as the 'from' field of a business SMS. In India a sender ID (also called a header) is a 6-character alphabetic code approved on the DLT platform and linked to a registered principal entity.
Marketing
SEO & AI
Search Engine Optimization and Artificial Intelligence. The process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic and authority through data-driven AI systems and search algorithms.
Messaging
Session Window
The 24-hour period on WhatsApp that opens when a user messages a business, during which the business can reply with free-form (non-template) messages. Outside this window, only pre-approved template messages are allowed.
Messaging
Short Code
A 5 to 6 digit number used to send and receive SMS at high volume, typically for OTPs, alerts, and marketing. Short codes are easier to remember than long numbers and support high throughput.
Voice
SIP Trunking
Session Initiation Protocol trunking. A method of delivering voice calls over the internet, replacing traditional physical phone lines with virtual channels that scale on demand and reduce telephony cost.
Messaging
SMPP
Short Message Peer-to-Peer. An open, industry standard protocol used to provide a flexible data communication interface for the transfer of short message data.
Security
SMS Pumping
Also called Artificially Inflated Traffic (AIT). A fraud in which bad actors trigger large volumes of OTP or verification SMS to numbers they control, inflating a victim business's messaging bill. Rate limiting and geo-controls are common defenses.
Messaging
SMSC
Short Message Service Centre. The network element in a mobile carrier's infrastructure that stores, routes, and forwards SMS messages between senders and recipients, handling retries when a handset is unreachable.
Security
SOC2
Service Organization Control 2. A cybersecurity compliance framework developed by the AICPA to ensure service providers securely manage data to protect the privacy and interests of their clients.
Security
SPF
Sender Policy Framework. An email authentication standard that lets a domain owner specify which mail servers are permitted to send email on the domain's behalf, helping receivers detect spoofing.
Messaging
TPS
Transactions Per Second. The rate at which a messaging platform or SMPP bind can submit messages to a carrier, a key throughput metric for high-volume campaigns and time-critical OTP delivery.
Compliance
TRAI
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The statutory body that regulates telecommunications, including the DLT commercial-messaging framework, DND preferences, and operator conduct in India.
Voice
TTS
Text-to-Speech. Technology that converts written text into natural-sounding spoken audio, used in IVR, voice bots, and accessibility features to deliver dynamic voice messages.
Messaging
Unicode SMS
An SMS encoded with the UCS-2 character set to support non-Latin scripts and emoji, such as Hindi or other Indic languages. Unicode messages carry a 70-character-per-segment limit versus 160 for GSM-7 text.
Messaging
Verified Sender
A brand whose identity has been authenticated by a carrier or platform, allowing it to display a verified logo, business name, and trust indicator on channels like RCS and WhatsApp, reducing spoofing and increasing engagement.
Voice
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol. A technology that allows you to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.
Development
Webhook
A method of augmenting or altering the behavior of a web page or web application with custom callbacks.
Messaging
WhatsApp Business API
The programmatic interface that lets medium and large businesses send notifications, run customer support, and deploy chatbots on WhatsApp at scale, billed on a conversation basis and accessed through an official Business Solution Provider.
Business
White-label
A product or platform built by one company and rebranded for resale by another under its own name and branding, letting resellers offer services such as messaging or dashboards without building the underlying technology.
Security
Zero Trust
A strategic initiative that helps prevent successful data breaches by eliminating the concept of trust from an organization's network architecture.