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Verizon Charges New 'Spam' Fee For Texts Sent From Teachers To Students (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A free texting service used by teachers, students, and parents may stop working on the Verizon Wireless network because of a dispute over texting fees that Verizon demanded from the company that operates the service. As a result, teachers that use the service have been expressing their displeasure with Verizon. Remind -- the company that offers the classroom communication service -- criticized Verizon for charging the new fee. Remind said its service's text message notifications will stop working on the Verizon network on January 28 unless Verizon changes course. (Notifications sent via email or via Remind's mobile apps will continue to work.) The controversy cropped up shortly after a Federal Communications Commission decision that allowed U.S. carriers' text-messaging services to remain largely unregulated. Verizon says the fee must be charged to fund spam-blocking services. Remind said in a statement: "To offer our text-messaging service free of charge, Remind has always paid for each text that users receive or send. Now, Verizon is charging Remind an additional fee intended for companies that send spam over its network. Your Remind messages aren't spam, but that hasn't helped resolve the issue with Verizon. The fee will increase our cost of supporting text messaging to at least 11 times our current cost -- forcing us to end free Remind text messaging for the more than 7 million students, parents, and educators who have Verizon Wireless as their carrier."
...them teachers switched to something like WhatsApp.
The problem is *not* that Verizon has decided to go after one particular School SMS provider.
Rather, Verizon has decided to charge bulk SMS providers (in this case, Twilio) a per-text-message fee. This fee is said to help pay for Verizon's anti-spam efforts.
Twilio then decided to pass this fee to customers in the exact amount Verizon charged.
Two other providers in Canada (Rogers & Bell) already charge Twilio similar fees, and other carriers are expected to do so soon.
Remind just happens to be a Twilio customer. But all Twilio customers {and customers of similar SMS services} are affected.
How dare you try to tamp down an opportunity for another tempest in a teapot? This is my chance for daily pointless internet outrage and cyber-lynching. I will not have you sedating the rabble with your soporific "facts".
Please cease and desist immediately.
My daycare uses the Remind app. Since I'm on Verizon, I received an in app message about this coming down the line the other day. However; my son's Pre-K teacher (who is registered with the county's school system) uses an app called Seesaw Family which is more like a messenger-style app. She has it set up so that only parents and approved extended family are allowed to sign up for her messages. She can send group messages or individual messages as needed and we can send private messages back to her to ask questions. It's free for us (parents) to use, but I'm not sure if she, or her affiliated school, had to pay a setup fee. Apps like that might be worth other teachers looking into.
Maybe T-Mobile and Sprint work where you are, but there's a reason they are cheaper. If you want coverage almost everywhere in the US, you can get Verizon or AT&T (preferably one of each; this is why my wife and I are on separate accounts). There's approximately zero chance that I would switch to a provider with bad coverage just so I could keep getting worthless notifications from a kid's school.
Uh, some of us sign up for these things because it's hard to keep track of all your kids' various practices, homework assignments, and other school stuff. I don't have Verizon so this doesn't affect me, but if I did I'd be installing the app so that I continue to receive the messages.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If you don't get good coverage from let's say TMobile, in your area, I can understand that. But if you do, then 99.9999% of the time, unless you travel all the time, you are gonna have good coverage.
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Except that Remind actually IS NOT spamming. I'm not sure how often this is used to communicate directly with students in upper grades or college. My experience is with it used in elementary school for the teachers to send information to the parents. It also allows parents to respond back to the group, and one parent to respond to any other parent in the class. And it does this without anyone having to share their email address or phone number with each other. The parents voluntarily sign up for the list, so it's not spam even if you don't like the messages being sent.
I don't understand why Remind wants to use SMS so badly? Install an app and communicate through that. This isn't a problem.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Is that spammers never believe the messages they send are spam.
Sorry, I don't need a bunch of BS being sent to my cell phone. If I'm in school, tell me in person. If it's after hours, leave me the hell alone.
Don't sign up to it and you'll be fine.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Yeah, I travel in a lot of rural areas, and there is coverage - on the interstate. Get even a few miles off that, though, and you can forget it with the low-cost carriers. VZW and ATT, despite all their nefarious fuckery, do actually cover those areas.
Including anti spam measures, all in cost per message that stays within the telco's system was less than 1 x 10 ^-5 cents per message.
All in cost included EVERYTHING: site loading, backbone network, data center, electricity, vendor support, etc.
SMS infrastructure is incredibly cheap. A telco is not giving up much when a plan includes unlimited messaging.
The only thing that inflates cost is when the message goes into another telco's system and a border fee is charged.
Caveat: Did this 10 years ago. I am sure costs have increased (dripping sarcasm).
The reason is reach.
SMS reaches 7 billion people.
Any app can only reach maximum 1-2% of that user base.
aaaaaaa
Remind sends emails to every teacher they can to try to get them to use their "free" service.
Once enough teachers in a district start using it, Remind contacts the school district to inform them that they are breaking the law and the paid version that archives the communications can be bought for tens of thousands of $$ a year.
This company has a business model based on borderline extortion. Hope they go out of business
at least they are not billing the end user for incoming txts.
Verizon and others need to stop trying to pretend that text messages cost them huge amounts of money. The maximum data size of a text message is 1120 bits! That's barely over 1Kbit (and that's bits not bytes!)
"Remind" could easily spin up it's own "Reminders" app, get students/parents to install it on their phones, and have it periodically check for notifications like any other messaging app on the planet over the phone's data connection (and if they roll their own, then they can store/archive the messages sent as per any government regulation requirements). And doing so would allow them to appropriately whip the finger and Verizon and any other service provider that decides it wants to charge for text messages. The only problem with this approach is that it's yet another app that has to remain resident in your's/your kid's smartphone memory eating up battery life.
....so like a listserv. This app sounds fine if it works for a given community, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
In my daughter's class the parents just got together and shared everyone's email address (and phone number if they wanted to), and the teacher sends out a weekly summary/reminder about what is going on, assignments, etc. I don't really see the big deal in sharing some basic contact information with people who are going to have a huge influence on your kid's development via their children. If one of them turns out to be a jerk, you can always block them.
"Remind" could easily spin up it's own "Reminders" app, get students/parents to install it on their phones, and have it periodically check for notifications like any other messaging app on the planet over the phone's data connection
They already have an app and it's pretty good. We use it for the high school team I coach and it works well. But expecting everyone to install an app and to check it religiously is unrealistic. Furthermore a surprising number of people don't have smartphones either by choice or by fiscal necessity. I have several parents who either have older flip phones (by choice) or who cannot afford smartphones. If you think "just install the app" is a good solution you haven't dealt with parents and you REALLY haven't dealt with students. Text messaging is FAR more universal and makes it easier to reach everyone. It also works with technology that you cannot install the app on. At schools you have to meet people where they are, not where you think they should be.
Basically Verizon is being lazy in their attempts to deal with text spammers. They are making simple and overly broad policies rather that doing the hard work of actually working to figure out who is a problem and who isn't.
... and the short of it is that Verizon wants more money.
yvw
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Remind sends emails to every teacher they can to try to get them to use their "free" service.
Not really true and even if it were there is nothing unethical about trying to reach a target audience.
Once enough teachers in a district start using it, Remind contacts the school district to inform them that they are breaking the law and the paid version that archives the communications can be bought for tens of thousands of $$ a year.
That is not their business model.
This company has a business model based on borderline extortion. Hope they go out of business
This is quite simply a lie. I use their app and so does our school district. They don't extort anyone.
I don't understand why Remind wants to use SMS so badly? Install an app and communicate through that. This isn't a problem.
Because you can reach more people with SMS than any app. Not everyone has the latest smartphones. I have quite a few parents on teams I coach that still use flip phones. And even those who do don't really want to be checking unnecessary apps. Text messaging is close to universal so why not use it? Also not everyone has access to data connections at all times and SMS can reach more places more of the time.
Sorry, I don't need a bunch of BS being sent to my cell phone. If I'm in school, tell me in person. If it's after hours, leave me the hell alone.
You obviously don't have children. It's not "a bunch of BS" and a lot of information needs to reach parents and students outside of school hours. I coach a sports team at a high school. We need to be able to reach parents and students and services like Remind (which we use) help a LOT with this. I am not a teacher and I have a real job. We send out information that everyone on the team needs to know in a timely and cost effective manner. Expecting schools to waste money chasing you down in person only during school hours and only when you happen to be on campus (rare for parents) is absurd.
Except that Remind actually IS NOT spamming. I'm not sure how often this is used to communicate directly with students in upper grades or college.
My school district uses it and it's hugely helpful. The team I coach uses it to great effect. We send out a few messages a week with information parents and students need to know. It results in a few messages a week mostly. Nothing unreasonable and it's entirely voluntary. But the utility means most parents sign up since they tend to like to know what's going on and I'm not about to call them one by one to explain everything.
Expecting students to hand over their personal information and cell phone number to a third party is also unrealistic.
Remind gets basically no personal information and cell phone numbers aren't private. Furthermore using it is 100% voluntary. The school can't make them use it if they don't want to. Some of the parents and kids I deal with don't have phones so they can't use it even if they want to.
You really haven't dealt with the reality of just how you've sold your students privacy down the river.
Ha! Are we talking about the same people who spend their entire lives on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat? Spare me your indignation. Remind is hardly going to make a dent in their loss of privacy which they don't value anyway.
You have no control over how "Remind" uses this data, or how the data will be sold over and over long after your high school team has moved on.
If Remind can find a way to monetize my team's announcements 5 years from now then $diety bless them.
When students sell their privacy to organizations like Facebook, it's their choice to do so or not.
It's no different with Remind. Using it is voluntary. The school can ask but they cannot force anyone to use it.
Who said it was spamming? Verizon is charging text-based services (like Twillo) a fee to fund anti-spam efforts.
Remind runs 1.6 billion texts/year through Twillo on the Verizon network, and as the source of over 4 billion text messages year, Verizon is charging Twillo a fee to help fund anti-spam measures.
Remind isn't being targeted, it is being asked by Twillo to pay it's share of the fee Verizon is charging it.
Paying a fee to fight spam doesn't mean you are a spammer, just as paying a 9/11 anti-terrorism fee when you buy an airline ticket doesn't make you a terrorist.
Ken
it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
Not all parents are rich enough to already have a PC and Internet at home. Phones on Lifeline plans are less likely to support email.
Why did you have the kid, then?
Because someone actually wanted to procreate with me.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They are charging Twillo a usage fee because they are a "heavy user" of the SMS services of Verizon, to the tune of 4.6 Billion message/year (that's over a half-million messages an hour, every hour of every day for a year). Twillo is (proportionally) passing that fee on to Remind, which generates 1.6 Billion messages/year (182K messages/hour, every hour of every day for a year).
Verizon isn't "charging" Remind anything, Remind chose to use a service that in-turn is choosing to pass on to it's customers (like Remind) a fee Verizon imposed on it.
The simple answer is for the people that value the service to pay for the premium service - Remind is absorbing the "anti-spam" fees for those customers... But then again, I suspect as is often the case when it comes to internet services - it's a vital resource for students, parent and teachers - but it's not worth actually paying for!
Ken
The school bus is going to be 25 minutes late, yes I'd like to see that notice from the school letting me know this in a timely fashion.
It's not my fault you lack the ability to not to look at your phone every time it goes buzz buzz in your pocket.
....so like a listserv. This app sounds fine if it works for a given community, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
"Severe Thunderstorm Warning / Flash Flood Warning / Armed Robbery at University and Fourth. Seek shelter if on campus." If those messages go to email, no one will see them for up to 24 hours. There's not even a guarantee of delivery!
SMS serves a specific niche that apps and email don't.
If Android and IOS could just put down the hand grenades for one moment and agree on a common texting over internet protocol, then we wouldn't have to rely on SMS texting in the first place.
Like email?
Ken
Verizon and others need to stop trying to pretend that text messages cost them huge amounts of money.
Verizon isn't acting like texts cost them huge amounts of money - they are collecting money for anti-spam efforts, you know - AI-based tools, manual review of messages, etc.
Remind, through Twillo, already pays a per-message fee to Verizon (and every other carrier), this is separate from that expense.
Ken
Bulk SMS company's should pay.. they are the ones using it the most.
They are the only ones facing this fee. Remind uses Twillo, Twillo pumps 4.5 Billon text messages into Verizon, and it pays a fee for each message it sends. Remind uses Twillo to send out it's text messages, all 1.6 billion of them a year. Twillo represents a constant half-million texts/hour, Remind represents 183K of those messages each hour. Twillo, and it's major client Remind, ARE the heavy users of the system.
Ken
Teachers today (apparently) want to be available to their students 24x7, for some unknown reason - it is amazing that education manages to occur without early--evening texts from the school reminding parents that tomorrow is "Taco Tuesday" and that "the big game with their cross-town rival is this Friday night."
Ken
It's double dipping. Each and every Verizon customer receiving those texts is paying Verizon for the ability to do so. The sender is already paying as well. It's just that Verizon decided to provide an inverse bulk discount because they can.
WhatsApp has an abusive TOS and requires high speed internet.
WhatsApp is not the only messaging app.
Also, WhatsApp does NOT require "high speed" internet. It will work fine over 2G or DSL.
I'm unclear why you insulted me when you provided an example that proved my point. ??? Your example is a good use of text messaging, thank you.
That's pretty much the entire point of using Remind, so that the school can inform you of important things like that. Didn't really mean to come off so snarky, but people really do need to be better about not checking every little buzz buzz from the phone, especially during meetings.
It's amazing how parents knew anything that was going on in the school before computers and cell phones were introduces. It's almost as if they had to talk to their child or something. Maybe even the teacher once and a while. Thank goodness technology has put an end to that!
Wait, not all airline customers are terrorists? Based on current and past TSA practices I wouldn't believe that's true.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
It doesn't matter if YOU have Verizon or not. If the service, Remind in this case, is using Twilio to send text messages, the cost just increased 11 fold. This means Remind's free service just became too expensive to continue at no cost. If you belonged to a quilting circle that used Twilio to send text messages, the cost for that group's text messages just increased also.
Verizon is charging Twilio more and they are passing the cost on to their users. Remind wanted an exemption to the fee increase because their service is related to "education".
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How was it free? Remind is spending money, and presumably not sending ads to students along with the teacher's messages. How were they making money?
This doesn't jibe with their announcement:
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Obviously you didn't RTFA
Uh, yeah I did. You seem to have invented something that I can't find in there. Please cite.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Technically, Verizon is charging the new fee to Twilio and Twilio is passing it on to Remind, Grey said. Remind has been paying Twilio to deliver text messages since 2011, he said.
But after re-reading the announcement from Remind more carefully as you suggested, and the additional story that came out today (Thurs), I acknowledge that I was incorrect in my assumption that this affected all users of Remind and not just Verizon users. Thanks for the clarification.
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