We have noticed some recent issues with SMS delivery in China that are leading to blocked or undeliverable notifications. We are working with customers and our service providers to address these issues as quickly as possible.

December 1, 2025 Update:

In partnership with our providers and customers in China, we have worked out a solution to the immediate issues with SMS delivery. Under the new policies and regulations and with the use of our new providers, users will experience the following:

• SMS messages in China will be delivered from a phone number beginning with #106

• The signature applied to SMS messages will be [艾问瑞之]. This is a registered sender signature required by Chinese regulators and cannot be customized or changed.

• URLs included in messages will be removed and replaced with [link redacted]. Updated regulations require that any links in SMS messages to China are hosted on servers in China and registered with the local regulatory body (ICP).

We are currently targeting Wednesday, December 3, 2025 to implement these changes.

Controlling spam and other unwanted text messages

The Chinese government and many of the service providers that deliver SMS notifications in China have recently begun taking steps to reduce the amount of unwanted text messages that Chinese recipients are subject to. Unfortunately, these measures have also impacted our ability to reliably deliver SMS notifications to xMatters users in China.

Unlike the recent changes to voice calls (where the issue was clearly identified as calls lasting less than than a specific length of time), there doesn't appear to be a consensus approach to how the government and service providers are addressing the issue. The instability and unreliability are therefore not specific to a single region but are instead country-wide and affecting users across China.

Message changes

We are taking any steps we can to meet new requirements as we become aware of them. Our providers have informed us of the need to re-register our signature or tag (a part of every message that identifies xMatters as the sender) and we are in the process of making sure we have multiple delivery channels.

Another change that has come to our attention is the need to provide specific message templates for notifications, It seems likely that, in the near future, all SMS messages in China must be sent using pre-registered templates.

Current experience

At the moment, it appears that no SMS notifications are reaching xMatters users in China. We are working diligently with our service providers to get messages moving again but it is likely that notifications will not be complete if and when they reach the intended users. Instead, users will receive notifications that consist only of:

• A tag identifying xMatters as the source of the message. (The exact tag depends on the service provider delivering the message and may not mention xMatters specifically.)

• A note indicating that an alert has been initiated in xMatters.

• The alert ID,

• The response options.

Timeline

As mentioned, we have already begun taking steps to ensure that we are properly registered to send SMS messages in China. Initially, messages may be tagged with a default tag, but we are working towards using an xMatters-specific tag.

We are also working towards a solution that may not require strict message templates while still allowing notifications to include message details.

If your notifications must include URLs that comply with local regulations (for example, links that are hosted on servers in China and ICP-registered), contact Support so they can work with you and our providers to ensure those links are permitted and sent correctly.

We want to stress that our chief priority is getting messages delivered reliably, and that preserving message content is secondary to this goal. This means that users in China may continue to only receive a notification with the alert ID and response options until we have a consistent, reliable delivery path that supports additional content.

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