Verizon Blames School Text Provider In Dispute Over 'Spam' Fee (arstechnica.com)

Last week, Ars Technica reported that Verizon's new "spam" fee for texts sent from teachers to students might stop working on the network because of a dispute over texting fees that Verizon demanded from Remind, the company that operates the service. Now, it appears that Verizon "has backed down from its original position slightly, and ongoing negotiations could allow the free texting service to continue," reports Ars. From the report: As we reported Monday, the dispute involves Verizon and Remind, which makes a communication service used by teachers and youth sports coaches. Verizon is charging an additional fee, saying the money will be used to fund spam-blocking services. The fee would increase Remind's costs for sending texts to Verizon users from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars per year, Remind said. Remind said it would absorb the cost in order to continue providing the paid version of its service. But most of Remind's 30 million users rely on the free version of the service, and Remind said it could no longer provide free text message notifications over Verizon's network unless the fee is reversed.

Verizon issued an announcement today, titled "App provider Remind threatens to eliminate a free texting service for K-12 education organizations (which will cost it nothing)." The title reflects a new offer Verizon said it made on Tuesday, which would reverse the fee for K-12 users of the free Remind service. "Verizon will not charge Remind fees as long as they don't begin charging K-12 schools, educators, parents and students using its free text message service," Verizon said. "Despite this offer, made Tuesday, Remind has not changed its position that it will stop sending free texts to Verizon customers who use the service regarding school closures, classroom activities and other critical information." The report goes on to note that simply limiting the offer to K-12 users means the fee "would still be charged for preschools, day-care centers, and youth sports coaches who use the free Remind service."

Comments

Verizon

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Seriously, it's Verizon...did you expect them to be fair or reasonable? Or even honest?

Re:Verizon

[lactose99]

But but but not Verizon's fault, its NEVER Verizon's fault.

This is a valid anti-spam measure

[Solandri]

I hate Verizon and refuse to get service from them. But one of the anti-spam measures commonly touted is to simply add a per-message fee which is small enough not to bother regular users (who send only a few thousand text messages a month), but big enough to cripple spammers (who send a few million text messages a month).

Such a fee is effective, but does have consequences for high-volume users. That is by design. This isn't a "Verizon is evil so this is wrong" thing. This is a "do you want to try to reduce or eliminate spamming by making it unprofitable?" thing.

The fee would increase Remind's costs for sending texts to Verizon users from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars per year, Remind said. Remind said it would absorb the cost in order to continue providing the paid version of its service. But most of Remind's 30 million users rely on the free version of the service, and Remind said it could no longer provide free text message notifications over Verizon's network unless the fee is reversed.

Several million dollars a year / 30 million users = about 10 cents per user per year.

Even if you assume "several million" is more than $5 million and divide by Verizon's 35% market share, that works out to less than a dollar per user per year. The fee is not ruinous. Unless you're a spammer.

Re:This is a valid anti-spam measure

[Dan East]

Maybe it's my carrier (US Cellular), but I get zero spam texts. I never have gotten them. Spam phone calls? Yes. A few a day currently. However I do not get spam texts. Now I don't know if they have preventative measures in place or what, but either no one attempts to send them to me, or they are doing an extremely effective job blocking them. I didn't even realize spam texts were a problem for some.

Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x

[Proudrooster]

Yes, while the FCC is furlough for the government shutdown, Verizon goes wild! We aren't talking about increasing the fee a little, Verizon is going for 700%-1110% fee increase. That takes some moxie, not even my scum bag monopoly cable provider tries for 700%. Keep in mind Remind already paying Verizon and providing the service free to teachers and coaches. Yes this is a huge scumbag move by Verizon and once again it highlights the effect of monopoly like power in big telecommunications companies.

From REMIND
===========
Why the Verizon fee affects free text messaging on Remind

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.

Re:Verizon is planning to increase the fee 11x

[Proudrooster]

Here is a better summary:

Congress passed a new resolution H.J. Res. 86.
Verizon sees this new rule as an opportunity to raise rights in the name of fighting SMS spam.
Verizon decides to raise rates on companies that are paying industry competitive SMS rates on not doing SMS spamming, since remind is 100% opt-in.

Remind says, "Hey, we aren't SMS spammers, don't raise our rates 7x-11x to fund a new Verizon department that fights SMS spam."

Lastly, with this move, Verizon SMS rates will no longer be in the realm of industry competitive SMS rates.

The same debate we had over Internet slow lanes with the cable companies who own the final mile to the customer.
Verizon owns the last link to the customer and they are going to be the troll under the bridge demanding outrageous fees to cross over.

So yes, their business model is based on a free service, but they are still paying for each SMS. They just can't pay Verizon 7x-11x the industry rate.