Verizon blocking email-to-SMS messages from Eyezon

[GrandWizard]

As many Verizon (Xfinitity et. al.) customers have noticed, on Friday April 12th, the company that handles Verizon's external email-to-SMS service made a policy change that greatly affects how many messages we can send to Verizon's cusomters. This number is effectively zero.

As well, many of our messages are being returned by CloudFilter as "USER UNKNOWN" which causes our alerting engine to remove the contact as part of our own anti-SPAM reduction endeavours.

Verizon, along with most other carriers, uses CloudFilter by CloudFlare to filter out SPAM SMS messages to their customers. While CloudFilter does the filtering, the rules and rate of messages is decided by the carrier. On April 12th Verizon made a rule change that limits the amount of messages we can send to their customers to effectively zero per hour which means all messages to Verizon customers from Eyezon are blocked.

This has happened many times in the past with many American and Canadian carriers, and it is usually customer disapproval that gets the block lifted.

If you wish to contact Verizon to express your displeasure, remember to explain that this relates to their "EMAIL-TO-SMS" service, a la **********@vtext.com, not their normal SMS service. You can explain that you rely on your notifications from your security service and having CloudFilter block the messages causes you immense grief.

In the past we have recommended using Gmail to forward your alerts to your phone but it seems they are blocking Gmail for the same reason they are blocking Eyezon so that won't work. If you have alternate email service that will forward your messages, you can try that as an option.

Verizon's block does not affect any other notification method so PUSH, email, and DirectSMS are still options until the block is lifted.

[aplmak]

I am currently on hold with Verizon right now and it's been over an hour. They are working to try to resolve this. Not sure if Verizon will get done today or not. I have specifically stated to them the issue as described and it's currently being escalated. I did however find this on their website and just thought I'd pass it along.

Q. I have a business and my email-to-text messages are not going through. What should I do?

A. Email-to-text is not intended for business/non-consumer (also known as A2P) messages. It is a legacy platform built to support low-volume consumer traffic only. Verizon has relationships with aggregator partners who offer messaging services for Business Messaging. We recommend you reach out to: Imimobile, Infobip, Kaleyra, Sinch, Syniverse, Twilio, Vibes Media, or consider Verizon’s Enterprise Messaging (EMAG) solution.

[aplmak]

I'm curious why doesn't Eyezon subscribe to a SMS service so messages can be delivered via SMS directly?? I suppose my Envisalink 4 is useless now.. Verizon has said they discontinued email-to-sms... Now I wish I didn't buy the Envisalink.

[GrandWizard]

I'm curious why doesn't Eyezon subscribe to a SMS service so messages can be delivered via SMS directly??

We do, and have offered it for almost a year now.

You can get DirectSMS as part of your E+ subscription. We have to charge for this because Verizon charges as much as 5 cents per message to us. It is absolutely crazy but it is true.

[aplmak]

I deeply apologize. You are absolutely correct. I setup as direct to SMS. It's working great now. Again my sincere apologies..

[aplmak]

Nevermind that is a subscription..... everyone want's to nickle and dime these days. I know it's not your fault and I believe you that Verizon will charge you. Looks like I am out of luck. Thanks anyways

[securitywolf]

Will the DirectSMS work with RCS? (I'll take it either way)?

[GrandWizard]

Will the DirectSMS work with RCS? (I'll take it either way)?

Do you mean Google's RCS? If yes, then no. Most aggregators have paused/stopped their APIs as Google seems to be using it for their native chat service.

If you mean something else, please explain.

[securitywolf]

Yes, Google RCS. I'll leave it on SMS. Thank you

[jsg_68]

Is there a "push" option instead?