On January 16, 2019, the education communication app ‘Remind 101” announced to its users that those with Verizon cellular service will “no longer receive text notifications because of a fee imposed by Verizon” via text. Remind is a service that connects students to its teachers using SMS messaging, allowing the students to receive reminders or important messages from their educators. With over 31 million users, the service is free for schools and Remind uses the service Twilio to do so. However according to USA Today, “…this new fee from Verizon on groups like Twilio that is intended to halt spam, Remind would have had to pay around 11 times of what it pays today — from several hundred thousand dollars a year to several million.”

Because of this notice, millions of users contacted Remind and Verizon to stop the fee from happening to those with Verizon could still use the service, and they made a difference. On January 25th, Remind let their users know that Verizon wireless users would still be able to receive Remind 101 notifications. According to Remind, “Verizon has informed us that they don’t have plans to change the fee structure applicable to Remind for text messaging.”  The backlash caused Verizon to decide to negotiate with REmind and not charge Remind for their service. Personally, as a Verizon user, I’m glad they decided to not go through with the new fee. Now other classmates and I can continue to communicate with our educators and be up to date with our classes.