Demystifying bulk SMS sender name

With the high penetration of mobile phones, companies have started sending out automated sms. I have always wondered about the cryptic sender names. Careful observations about the sender name reveals:

• all letters are in capitals
• name format is **-******
• the first two letters seem random
• followed by an hyphen
• followed by a six letter
• last six letters seem to identify the sender name
• for example presently, "SBIINB" represents SBI bank
• sometimes the same sender can send some sms with different combinations of first two letters
• SBI sends sms as "BX-SBIINB", "TD-SBIINB" etc.

Some researching in internet points out that my observations about the last six letters are correct. The first two letters before the hyphen represents service provider and the region from which it is sent. For the examples above:

• "BX" = BSNL from Karnataka
• "TD" = Tata from Delhi

View the official list of bulk sms codes in the NDNC website.