One thing that makes cellular users crazy is the inability of their providers to turn off text messaging. While younger folks are texting at a rate that baffles most folks over 30, many older folks don’t want it, don’t need it and get upset to the point of stroke when they’re told that their service provider cannot and will not remove the ability to accept text messaging from their cellular service. To add insult to annoyance, the cellular companies charge you for these unwanted messages after they’ve told you that the can’t remove the feature.
Very simply, you’re mad at the wrong people. It’s not the cellular companies that make it impossible to remove the text messaging feature, it’s your federal government.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 to be exact.
Now…you may say, “But Timmer, that Act was never ratified.” and you’d be right.
However, the FCC in its infinite wisdom still took the part of The TCA of 1996 which said that telecommunications companies could not restrict telemessaging services and ran with it anyway. The idea being that if those messages were restricted, that would be an infringement on the senders’ First Amendment rights.
There isn’t a customer service rep working for a cellular company today who doesn’t WANT to turn off your text messaging. Believe me when I say that as much as it annoys our customers, it annoys us just as much. We don’t like being told what low-lifes we are or that we’re in cahoots with the texting spammers or what a scam it is. We don’t.
It is nice to be able to tell everyone that you’re mad at the wrong people though, and that word is getting out. Apparently the FCC is getting tired of cellular customers calling THEM to complain about it and there’s hope that by the end of the summer, we’ll be able to turn off those annoying messages for those folks who have no use for little messages on their phones.
UPDATE: The more I read about this issue, the less the above explanation holds water. I’m on my weekend, but I’m going to be speaking with the person who offered this explanation to me come Monday. I’m not going to take it down though. I’m going to leave this up as a reminder to do more research BEFORE I put up a post. Thanks to those of you who chimed in and made me look closer at this.
“It’s not the cellular companies that make it impossible to remove the text messaging feature, it’s your federal government.”
Bull. 200 million US cell phone subscribers * 4 unwanted text messages per year per subscriber * $0.15 per message = $120M/year. That’s the sort of number that makes a phone company executive reach for his political donation checkbook.
Comment by Daniel Newby — 20080514 @ 1216
How odd… I almost NEVER receive an unwanted text message. Maybe 2 in the entire time I’ve had textable phones
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20080514 @ 2001
So…the FCC, run by five commissioners holding Presidential appointed positions, which are confirmed by the Senate, with a restriction of three commissioners at a time belonging to the same political party, is influenced by campaign contributions to…who exactly?
Comment by Timmer — 20080514 @ 2330
I have had a text capable phone for the last 5 years or so. In that time, I have received one single unwanted text. I love the feature and ensured that I also have unlimited texting. I also recommend to my kids that they go with the unlimited feature. When they are texting 2000+ messages a month it is stupid not to get the flat rate.
Comment by Joe — 20080515 @ 0723
I get one unsolicited (i.e. not from friends/family) maybe every three months. The one time my wife and I on both our personal phones got a string of spam/phish messages I called the cellular provider and the messages ceased, amazingly enough. On my employer provided phone (different area code, number, city) I get one every 4-6 months. So for me the problem has not been enough to complain (exception above).
OTOH the option is one that should be available to be turned off. When I was receiving that flurry of unsolicited messages, I was thinking I liked the European model - the sender pays for the messages. That would nip the text spam now.
I can also see the cellular providers fighting the FCC rule change for the reason noted earlier. TEXT is a big money generator. It uses the control channel of the phone and network and is a very low overhead application. This allows the provider to leverage a piece of the phone for revenue generation without impacting the primary function of providing voice services. (Though I have noticed of late that I am getting far more timeouts when sending than I used to get. Maybe that little used channel is becoming saturated.)
Comment by JoeC — 20080515 @ 1619
I have Verison and recently called customer service and they blocked all text messages on my cellular - no problem ????
Comment by Chief — 20080515 @ 2009
I’m not sure I buy this.
First, I *have* had my text messaging disabled before back when I was with Cingular and was getting hit with 20-30 blank messages per hour (turned out a button on my sister’s phone got stuck down by something in her purse, and it was machine-gunning messages at me).
Secondly, there is no First Amendment right to be heard, only to speak. So a person deciding to turn off receipt of text messages would not infringe on the sender’s right, as the sender has no right to require me to receive or read his or her message, which is effectively what the above interpretation would mean. It would be equivalent to letting a protester on a street corner grab a passer-by and hold him down while he rambled on about his pet cause.
Comment by Aubrey Turner — 20080516 @ 0938
Yeah, I’m reading more and more about this issue since I posted this. It’s not clear that the FCC actually went so far as to restrict turning that service off. I may have to have a chat with the member of management at my company that gave us that explanation.
Comment by Timmer — 20080516 @ 0942
I don’t think it would be so bad if you didn’t get charged unless you opened the message and read it.
Comment by Paul — 20080517 @ 1148
I occasionaly get spam text messages, whats your advice on getting that to stop?
Comment by Cpl/Sgt Blondie — 20080518 @ 0738
Blondie, it really depends on your carrier. Most spammers are sending from an email address or a short code vs a cell phone number.
Give your customer service dept a call. There may be filters for specific addresses/codes built into the system.
If your service supports email as well as text messaging, it may be as simple as changing the alias from your phone number to something text based.
For instance, if you’re with Verizon, your email address for your phone might be 123-555-3456@verizon.net. Spammers war-dial, let a computer dial down a list, and just send a message to every number. If you change it to text, blondie@verizon.net, you just fall off the computerized lists.
Comment by Timmer — 20080518 @ 1022