In the past few weeks, Verizon has been caught in a dispute with Remind: a company that offers mass communications services for schools and communities. The service allows teachers to send free and paid SMS messages to their students using a platform which enables bulk texting.

Verizon attracted criticism when it announced a new fee of 0.25 cents per message to the service, which the telecommunications giant said would be used to pay for spam-blocking services.

According to Remind, the introduction of the proposed fee would have increased Remind’s expenses for texting its Verizon users from several hundred thousand dollars per year to millions of dollars per year, making it impossible to continue supporting the free version of its service. Remind is used in more than half of US public schools, and sends approximately 1.6 billion SMS messages every year using the Verizon network.

Verizon later offered to reverse the fee for non-paying Remind users in K-12 education (standard primary and secondary education). The offer meant, however, that a fee would still be charged to preschool teachers, day-care centres, youth sports coaches, and other users, leading Remind to publicly demand that Verizon agree to roll back the fee for all and stop treating school-related notices as “spam”.

The fee was due to be introduced today, and would have resulted in Remind being forced to halt SMS notifications to its seven million Verizon customers.

Under pressure from the educational sector – including a social media campaign using the hashtag #ReverseTheFee – Vector has agreed not to charge the fee to Remind and similar companies. In a statement, Verizon said it was “committed to ensuring that a free messaging option remains available now and going forward.”

In a blog post on the company website, Remind CEO Brian Grey said: “I cannot tell you how much all of us at Remind have appreciated your calls, posts, and messages. Your voices have been heard.”

“I am thrilled to announce that, thanks entirely to you, we have heard from Verizon that they don’t have plans to change the fee structure applicable to Remind for SMS messaging. This mean we will no longer be forced to shut off text notifications for Verizon Wireless customers using Remind. There will be no service disruptions for Verizon Wireless customers.”

Grey thanked Verizon for its commitment to supporting “accessible communication” for all Remind users.

In the past few weeks, Verizon has been caught in a dispute with Remind: a company that offers mass communications services for schools and communities. The service allows teachers to send free and paid SMS messages to their students using a platform which enables bulk texting.

Verizon attracted criticism when it announced a new fee of 0.25 cents per message to the service, which the telecommunications giant said would be used to pay for spam-blocking services.

According to Remind, the introduction of the proposed fee would have increased Remind’s expenses for texting its Verizon users from several hundred thousand dollars per year to millions of dollars per year, making it impossible to continue supporting the free version of its service. Remind is used in more than half of US public schools, and sends approximately 1.6 billion SMS messages every year using the Verizon network.

Verizon later offered to reverse the fee for non-paying Remind users in K-12 education (standard primary and secondary education). The offer meant, however, that a fee would still be charged to preschool teachers, day-care centres, youth sports coaches, and other users, leading Remind to publicly demand that Verizon agree to roll back the fee for all and stop treating school-related notices as “spam”.

The fee was due to be introduced today, and would have resulted in Remind being forced to halt SMS notifications to its seven million Verizon customers.

Under pressure from the educational sector – including a social media campaign using the hashtag #ReverseTheFee – Vector has agreed not to charge the fee to Remind and similar companies. In a statement, Verizon said it was “committed to ensuring that a free messaging option remains available now and going forward.”

In a blog post on the company website, Remind CEO Brian Grey said: “I cannot tell you how much all of us at Remind have appreciated your calls, posts, and messages. Your voices have been heard.”

“I am thrilled to announce that, thanks entirely to you, we have heard from Verizon that they don’t have plans to change the fee structure applicable to Remind for SMS messaging. This mean we will no longer be forced to shut off text notifications for Verizon Wireless customers using Remind. There will be no service disruptions for Verizon Wireless customers.”

Grey thanked Verizon for its commitment to supporting “accessible communication” for all Remind users.