Glossary
Every term, explained.
DLT, WABA, sender IDs, message templates, TRAI rules — the jargon behind SMS, WhatsApp and email in India, in plain language. Bookmark this page and come back whenever a term trips you up.
35 terms across 5 categories. Last updated: July 2026.
DLT & SMS (India)
- DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology)
- TRAI's mandatory registration system for commercial SMS in India, operated by telecom providers. Every business sending bulk SMS must register its entity, sender IDs and message templates on a DLT platform before a single message can be delivered. DLT has been compulsory since 2022. See how LigiComms handles DLT on the DLT-Ready SMS page.
- Principal Entity (PE)
- The business or organisation registered on a DLT portal. Each legal entity (identified by PAN) gets a unique 13-character PE ID starting with "TM" — for example, TM-1234567890. All your sender IDs and templates are tied to this PE ID.
- Sender ID / Header
- The short name recipients see as the message sender. Transactional and service headers are six alphabetic characters (e.g. FSTSMS), while promotional headers are six to ten characters. Each header must be registered on your DLT portal and mapped to your PE ID before use.
- Template ID
- A 19-character identifier assigned by the DLT platform to every approved message format. The template defines the fixed text and the variable placeholders — and every SMS you send must match a registered template exactly, or the operator network will block it.
- Transactional SMS
- Messages triggered by a customer action — OTPs, order confirmations, payment alerts, appointment reminders. Sent 24/7 with no time restriction and delivered even to numbers on the national Do Not Disturb registry. The transaction itself is the consent.
- Promotional SMS
- Marketing messages — offers, discounts, campaign announcements. Restricted to 10 AM – 9 PM IST and blocked to DND-registered numbers unless the business holds verified digital consent through TRAI's DCA process.
- Service Implicit SMS
- Updates tied to an existing customer relationship — delivery tracking, subscription renewals, account activity alerts. No separate consent is needed beyond the relationship itself. Sent 24/7 and not blocked by DND.
- Service Explicit SMS
- Service-related messages with a promotional flavour — a credit limit upgrade offer to an existing bank customer, for instance. Requires explicit opt-in consent from the recipient, even though a relationship already exists.
- DND / NDNC (Do Not Disturb)
- India's national opt-out registry maintained by TRAI. Subscribers register to block unsolicited commercial communication. Promotional SMS to DND numbers is silently dropped by the operator unless the sender has DCA-verified digital consent. Transactional and service messages bypass DND.
- DCA (Digital Consent Acquisition)
- TRAI's process for obtaining verified consent to send promotional SMS to DND-registered numbers. The subscriber receives an OTP, confirms it, and the consent is logged on the DLT platform — valid for 180 days, after which it must be renewed.
- TRAI
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India — the government body that regulates telecom services, including commercial SMS. TRAI mandated DLT registration, the DND registry, SMS timing restrictions and the template-based delivery system that governs every bulk SMS sent in the country.
- DLT Operator Portal
- The platform where you register your entity, sender IDs and templates. Approved portals include Airtel, Jio, Vodafone, BSNL, Tata Tele, Vilpower and Smartping. You register on any one — all portals are synchronised, so your registrations propagate across every telecom network automatically.
WhatsApp Business API
- WABA (WhatsApp Business Account)
- The business entity registered with Meta that owns your phone numbers, message templates and billing. A WABA is what connects your business to the WhatsApp Business Platform — without one, you cannot use the API. In LigiComms, each tenant connects its own WABA through Meta's Embedded Signup. See the full setup on the WhatsApp Broadcasts page.
- Embedded Signup
- Meta's one-click flow for connecting a WhatsApp Business number. A popup appears, you verify your business, register (or select) a phone number, and the WABA is created — typically under two minutes. The WABA and number are owned by your business, not by LigiComms.
- Message Template
- A pre-approved message format submitted to Meta before you can initiate a conversation with a customer. Templates define the fixed text, variable placeholders ({{1}}, {{2}}, etc.) and the message category. Meta reviews each template — most are approved within 15 to 30 minutes.
- Marketing Message
- A WhatsApp template category for promotional content — product launches, discount offers, event invitations, re-engagement campaigns. Marketing messages carry the highest per-message cost (around ₹0.78 to ₹0.88 in India as of 2026) and are subject to quality-based send limits.
- Utility Message
- A WhatsApp template category for expected transactional content — order confirmations, shipping updates, appointment reminders, account alerts. Lower cost than marketing (around ₹0.11 to ₹0.13 in India). When sent inside an open customer service window, utility templates can be free.
- Authentication Message
- A WhatsApp template category for identity verification — OTPs, two-factor codes, password resets. Same pricing band as utility messages. These carry strict formatting rules and must include a one-time code and an expiry.
- Customer Service Window
- A 24-hour period that opens when a customer sends your business a message on WhatsApp. While this window is open, you can reply with free-form text (no template needed) at no charge. Once the window closes, you can only re-initiate contact with an approved template, which is billed.
- Quality Rating
- Meta's assessment of your WhatsApp number's health, based on how recipients interact with your messages — blocks, reports and read rates. Rated Green (healthy), Yellow (at risk) or Red (poor). A Red rating reduces your messaging limit; sustained poor quality can get your number restricted.
- Messaging Limit
- The number of unique customers you can initiate conversations with per day. New WABAs start at 250 per day and graduate through tiers (1,000 → 10,000 → 100,000 → unlimited) as your quality rating stays Green. The limit applies only to business-initiated messages, not to replies within customer service windows.
- Per-Message Billing
- Since July 2025, Meta bills each delivered template message individually by category and recipient country — replacing the earlier model that charged a flat fee per 24-hour conversation window regardless of how many templates were sent. India rates are billed in Indian rupees since January 2026.
- SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
- The standard protocol for sending email over the internet. When you plug your own SMTP credentials into LigiComms — Gmail, Outlook, Zoho or a custom server — your marketing and transactional emails are sent through your own domain, not ours.
- Opt-In / Opt-Out
- Opt-in means a recipient has explicitly agreed to receive your emails — a signup form, a checkbox, a confirmed subscription. Opt-out (unsubscribe) means they've asked to stop receiving them. Both are legally required: India's DPDP Act, the EU's GDPR, and the US CAN-SPAM Act all mandate clear unsubscribe mechanisms in every commercial email.
- Bounce
- When an email cannot be delivered. A hard bounce means the address doesn't exist (permanent — remove it from your list). A soft bounce means a temporary issue like a full mailbox. High bounce rates damage your sender reputation and can get your domain blocklisted.
Data Protection (India)
- DPDP Act (Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023)
- India's data protection law, passed in August 2023 and operationalised through the DPDP Rules. It governs how businesses collect, store and process the personal data of individuals in India. Penalties reach up to ₹250 crore for data breaches and ₹50 crore for processing data without valid consent.
- Data Fiduciary
- Under the DPDP Act, the entity that determines the purpose and means of processing personal data — effectively, the business that decides what data to collect and what to do with it. If you run a business and collect customer phone numbers or emails, you are a Data Fiduciary.
- Data Principal
- The individual whose personal data is being processed. If you are a customer, an employee, a website visitor — anyone whose data a business holds — you are the Data Principal, and the DPDP Act gives you enforceable rights over how your data is used, corrected and deleted.
- Consent (under DPDP)
- The DPDP Act requires consent to be free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous — given through a clear affirmative action, not buried in a terms-of-service checkbox. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, and the business must make withdrawal as easy as giving it.
Social Publishing & Platform
- Cross-Posting
- Publishing the same content to multiple social networks in a single action. In LigiComms, you write a post once and it fans out to whichever channels you select — each formatted to that platform's rules (character limits, hashtag caps, media requirements).
- Per-Channel Caption
- Writing a different caption for each social network within the same post. A tweet stays within 280 characters; an Instagram caption stretches to 2,200; a Bluesky post fits 300. LigiComms lets you customise each one individually or copy across.
- Reel / Short
- A short vertical video format — called a Reel on Instagram, a Short on YouTube, and simply a vertical video on LinkedIn, Pinterest, Telegram and X. Upload once in LigiComms and it publishes to every channel that supports the format. See channel specs on the Reels & Shorts page.
- Content Calendar
- A month-view grid showing every scheduled, published and failed post across all channels and formats. In LigiComms, clicking a day opens a drawer with full post details — status, channel, content, media and a link to the live post. See how scheduling and the calendar work on the Scheduling page.
- Sociobox
- LigiComms's unified inbox for direct messages and mentions across channels — Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs, Telegram DMs, Threads mentions, WhatsApp and (for enabled brands) X/Twitter DMs — all in one tabbed view instead of switching between five apps.
- Credit Wallet
- A prepaid USD balance used to pay for per-message channels (SMS and WhatsApp) and per-post channels (X/Twitter). You recharge in Indian rupees through Cashfree; the amount converts to USD credit at the live exchange rate. Each send deducts a fixed amount, and failed deliveries are automatically refunded.
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