In short
- Who receives it: the staff, customers, residents or service users on your contact lists.
- How you send: from the web platform, or from your systems over REST, SMPP or SOAP.
- What you see: a delivery receipt for each message, and reports you can export.
- Who can send: users you set up at admin or user level, signing in with two-factor authentication.
- Permit: Interkey holds CST's permit to provide short message services (SMS).
Organisation emergency SMS vs phone emergency alerts
Two different things are called "emergency alerts" on a phone. This page is about the first.
| Emergency SMS from your organisation | Emergency alerts to everyone in an area | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sends | Your government entity, utility, hospital, university or company | Competent government authorities |
| Who receives | People on your lists: staff, customers, residents, service users | Every phone in the affected area |
| What you need | Mobile numbers, a registered sender name, approved templates | Nothing from you: the authority issues it |
| What the recipient sees | An SMS from your sender name | A warning shown by the phone itself (cell broadcast) |
| Through Digital Connect | Yes | No |
CST's regulations define warning messages as high-priority messages that competent government bodies send to all or some regions of the Kingdom, reaching only people in the danger area. Digital Connect does not send those area-wide alerts. It sends SMS to the numbers on your lists.
What the Saudi rules say about urgent notices
These points come from CST's regulations for SMS anti-spam (version 3, October 2022, Decision 493/1444):
| Rule | What it means for an emergency notice | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Who may send what | Government entities may send awareness, service and warning messages. Private entities may send promotional, awareness and service messages. | 4.6.11 |
| Service messages | Messages to a specific user about a contracted service or its updates. | 2.22 |
| Awareness messages | Guidance for the public or specific groups. Before sending, coordinate with the bodies that regulate you, include your official name in the text, and send no more than one per day to a user. | 2.21, 4.6.7 |
| Restricted hours | No promotional or awareness messages from 10 pm to 9 am; during Ramadan from 1 am to 12 noon. | 4.4.10, 4.6.8 |
| Identical messages | Providers pause identical messages sent to more than 50 numbers within one minute while the content and links are checked. Government entities and banks are exempt. | 4.5.1 |
| Sender name priority | Government entities take precedence for a sender name. | 4.3.8 |
How your notice is classified decides which rules apply, so agree the classification with your compliance team before an incident, not during one. CST's regulations for SMS anti-spam
Prepare before an emergency
- Lists by group. Keep separate contact lists for each site, team or service area, so you can reach only the people affected.
- Approved templates. Templates are approved by your team and by Interkey before use, so prepare the likely scenarios now: closure, outage, evacuation, delay, all-clear.
- A registered sender name your recipients already recognise. Interkey registers it with the operators through CST's central bulk-SMS system during onboarding.
- Named senders. Decide who may send, give them the right permission level, and make sure they can sign in with two-factor authentication.
- A spending limit that fits a large send. Spending limits are set for your account; agree a level that will not stop an emergency message to all your lists.
- A follow-up plan. Use the delivery receipts to find who has not received the message, and decide who calls them.
- A test. Send a test message to a small internal group so everyone knows the steps.
Example emergency messages
Each message fits one SMS. A message in the GSM-7 alphabet fits 160 characters; Arabic text fits 70 characters.
| Scenario | Message | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| Evacuation | Fire alarm at Building B. Leave by the nearest exit and go to Assembly Point 2. Do not use the lifts. | 101 |
| Closure | Our offices in Riyadh are closed today, 14 Jan, because of heavy rain. Work from home. Further updates by SMS. | 110 |
| Utility outage | Unplanned power outage in Al Malqa since 15:20. Our teams are working on it. Next update by 17:00. | 98 |
| Service outage | Our app and website are down. Card payments in our stores work as normal. We will text you when service is back. | 112 |
| All-clear | All clear: Building B is safe. Staff may return from 11:30. | 59 |
Keep each message to one action and one time for the next update. For Arabic templates, check the length with the SMS segment calculator.
How Digital Connect supports emergency messages
- Send from the web platform to a contact list, or schedule follow-up messages.
- Send from your systems over REST, SMPP or SOAP, for example from an incident or monitoring system, with access limited to whitelisted IP addresses or a VPN connection.
- Approved templates ready before you need them.
- A delivery receipt for each message and reports you can export after the event.
- Account controls: fraud protection, country blocking and spending limits.
- Support from Interkey's team in Riyadh, in Arabic and English. Build your procedure so your own team can send without waiting for anyone.
Who uses emergency SMS this way
Government entities and utilities notifying residents and customers of outages or service changes, hospitals and universities reaching staff and students, and companies with large sites or field teams that need to reach everyone on one list quickly.
When Digital Connect is not the right channel: a public warning that must reach everyone in an area, including people who are not on any list, is issued by the competent authorities.
Questions about emergency alert SMS
Can Digital Connect send an alert to every phone in an area?
No. Digital Connect sends SMS to the mobile numbers on your lists. Alerts to every phone in an area are issued by competent government authorities.
Can we send an urgent notice at night?
The restricted hours in CST's regulations cover promotional and awareness messages: none from 10 pm to 9 am, and during Ramadan from 1 am to 12 noon. Agree with your compliance team how your notices are classified before you rely on night-time sending.
Can our incident system trigger the message automatically?
Yes, if it can call an API. Digital Connect supports REST, SMPP and SOAP, with access from whitelisted IP addresses or over a VPN connection.
How do we know who received the message?
Each message has a delivery receipt, and reports can be exported for your incident record.
Do we need a separate sender name for emergencies?
Not necessarily. Use a name your recipients already recognise, so they trust the message. Interkey registers sender names with the operators through CST's central bulk-SMS system during onboarding.
How is it priced?
By quote, based on your volume and traffic type. Tell us how many people are on your lists and how often you expect to send.