How To Stop Unwanted Text Messages From MTN, GLO, ETISALAT, AIRTEL : Do-Not-Disturb

If your service provider is MTN, you would agree with me when I say an average MTN user receives at least 5 spam sms from MTN daily, now sum that up with the days in a month? and you are going to have a whole lot messages from MTN on your phone. Well, there is good news, with help from NCC, users can now decide if they want to receive messages from service providers or not. This do-not-disturb policy applies to all service providers.

It can be quite annoying when you are busy with something important, or expecting a bank alert and then your mobile phone starts ringing and when you pick up you are showered with spam calls telling you about offers, adverts and blah blah blah.

Subsequently, users have learned to outsmart their service providers by not picking calls from certain numbers that would look like 1234. But you’ll agree with me now that service providers have become smarter. They call with numbers that look like an actual phone number thus luring you to pick the calls.

Wanna know a fact?

well, none of the service providers will want its users to subscribe to the DND service because they make money by allowing advertisers to send SMS to their customers.

NCC’S DO NOT DISTURB

Now NCC brought about the DND, which means ‘do not disturb’  It was previously announced that the NCC mandated all telecommunication networks to introduce a Do-not-disturb service to all customers effective from July 1st 2016. This service will allow customers to choose what kind of promotional broadcast message they want to receive on their phones from their service providers.

Telecommunication networks automatically subscribed some customers to receiving these broadcast messages without their consent. while the whole idea of this new service is a development, there are quite a number of advantages and disadvantages that I think you need to know before activating or deactivating the do-not-disturb service.

Advantages

• No more annoying spam messages requesting you to subscribe.
• Your battery life is safe.
• No more mistaking a message for a bank alert.
• Rest of mind.

Disadvantages

• You may not receive an important information. e.g Job opportunities
• Your bank alert may be affected.
• You will not be able to receive messages from any bulk SMS platform.

I was going through my emails when I saw this.

Dear Customer,

MTN has automatically subscribed many users to the D-N-D service. This means many of your MTN recipients will not be able to get your messages because D-N-D has been activated on their lines. Unfortunately, many of the MTN users do not know that their lines have been activated for D-N-D. Therefore, it is necessary for you to orientate your users about their D-N-D status.

I was happy, that finally spam sms would stop infiltrating my phone.

So How Can You Stop Unwanted  Text Messges / Block Spam Text ?

MTN, GLO, ETISALAT and AIRTEL users are advised to confirm the status of their lines by sending “STATUS” to 2442. If the service is NOT active, the user can choose to activate the service or not but in case the service is automatically active and the user is not comfortable with it, follow these procedures to unsubscribe or subscribe.

1. Send STOP to 2442  to deactivate the DND service.

2. Send ALLOW to 2442 to activate the DND service.

Now that’s not all.

The Do-not-disturb feature is of two types, there is a full and partial mode. The full mode completely stops unwanted messages and calls on your sim from service providers, while the partial mode allows you to block specific categories of the promotional text and calls on your sim from service providers.

You can see the list of partial codes by sending HELP to 2442 from your MTN, GLO, ETISALAT, and AIRTEL sim. but for the sake of this post I’ll give the codes below.

Send  1 to 2442 to receive Banking/Insurance/Financial products.

Send  2 to 2442 to receive Real Estate SMS and IVR messages.

Send  3 to 2442 to receive Education and IVR messages.

Send  4 to 2442 to receive Health and IVR messages.

Send  5 to 2442 to receive Consumer goods, Automobile and IVR messages.

Send  6 to 2442 to receive Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT and IVR messages.

Send  7 to 2442 to receive Tourism, Leisure, and IVR messages.

Send  8 to 2442 to receive Sport and IVR messages.

Send  9 to 2442 to receive Religion and IVR messages.

Send ALLOW to 2442 to activate all messages fully.

Send STOP to 2442 to stop all messages fully.

Send STATUS to 2442 for  MTN, GLO, ETISALAT and AIRTEL do-not-disturb-feature status.

Send HELP to 2442 for list of partial activation codes.

I hope this post helps you to stop unwanted messages / spam sms on your device.
If you have any issues kindly drop your comment.