After an outcry from
educators on social media, along with countless phone calls to Verizon customer
service, the telecommunications company says it will not enforce the 11-fold
fee increase that was slated to hit Remind, a
messaging service used widely by teachers and parents in the U.S., come
February.
On Monday, Remind notified its users, 7 million of whom are
Verizon Wireless customers, that with the new fee hike, it would no longer be
able to absorb the cost of its users sending text messages on its platform.
Remind users weren’t going down without a fight. Thousands of
them posted on Twitter with the hashtags #ReverseTheFee and #NotSpam. The
latter refers to Verizon’s justification for these fees as a way to help the
telecommunications company curb spam messages, which Remind inadvertently got
clumped into.
By Wednesday evening, Verizon made it clear that it was not
going to stand in the way of students, parents and educators and a tool many
consider essential to classroom communication today.
“We are dedicated to ensuring that our network is available and
accessible to users who rely on us for important information like school closings,
classroom activities and more,” wrote Rich Young, a Verizon spokesperson, in a
statement to EdSurge. “So to ensure [Remind] can continue offering this service
in an economically reasonable manner, we will not charge for delivering these
messages.”
The telecoms giant never intended to levy prohibitive fees on an
education service, an official said. The Verizon fee was passed on to Twilio, a
third-party company that Remind uses to delivers texts sent through its
platform. Twilio chose not to incur those costs and instead pass them on to its
own customers, Remind included.
At least a handful of other education companies, including Seesaw, ClassDojo and TalkingPoints,
mention using Twilio’s services on their websites. But it’s unclear whether
those companies will be affected or how much the proposed fees would hurt them.
EdSurge has reached out for comment.
For Remind, the fees would have been substantial, increasing
what it currently pays in Verizon customers’ messaging fees from about $360,000
to nearly $4 million per year.
Officials at Remind are not celebrating the Verizon news just
yet, noting that they’d been in talks with the company for months without reaching
a resolution. In a statement to EdSurge Wednesday night, a Remind spokesperson
said: “It's reassuring to hear that Verizon doesn't want to drive profits on
the backs of students, families, and educators. … [But] Verizon has not signed
any agreement with Remind to ensure that fees will be waived for all users of
our free service. When we’re assured that a long-term deal is in place to
guarantee that all the educators, parents and students currently using our free
service can use SMS on the Verizon network without fees, we will be thrilled to
continue our service without disruption.”
Remind also faces 25-fold fee increases from two Canadian
carriers, Rogers and Bell, which would affect a significant portion of the company’s
1 million users in Canada. It’s unclear whether the telecoms companies will
stay the course or follow Verizon.
Emily Tate (@ByEmilyTate)
is a reporter at EdSurge covering K-12 education. Reach her at emily [at]
edsurge [dot] com.
