Everything worth knowing, nothing that isn't.
What the test exercises
The operator's NOC sends a known test MSISDN list (typically 50–200 numbers across promotional, transactional, and OTP content classes) through the aggregator's A2P route. It verifies: correct sender-ID rendering, correct billing classification (P/T/O), DLR fidelity (state, error code, network code), latency p50/p95/p99, encoding handling for GSM 7-bit and UCS-2, long-SMS concatenation, and the absence of any grey-route fallback when the primary route is throttled.
What fails most often
Three things. Sender-ID truncation past 11 characters (we have seen aggregators silently transliterate). DLR error code mapping (operators expect SMPP error codes that match their HLR/MSC reasons; some aggregators send generic 0x000000FF and lose the ground truth). Silent fallback to a cheaper P2P route when the operator throttles the A2P trunk — this is the death-knell finding and instantly ends the relationship.
Re-testing cadence
Most operators re-test every 6 months for active aggregators and every 30 days when an incident has been logged. BroadNet's compliance team self-runs IR.71-pattern tests every Sunday on every direct route, and feeds the results into the same dashboard the NOC uses. We catch regressions before the operator does.
Why this matters to buyers
If your aggregator cannot show you their last IR.71 test results for a country, assume they don't have a direct A2P agreement there. They are routing on grey, and the operator's SMS firewall will start blocking once they classify the route. Always ask: "Show me your most recent IR.71 test for STC / Etisalat / Vodafone Egypt."