To the misfortune of many, starting on Jan. 28, all 7 million Verizon users will no longer be able to send or receive text messages through the Remind app until Verizon reverses its fee. Remind has been paying for every text sent and received for its users until it was found that Verizon would be charging an additional fee. This fee will raise the cost 11 times of Remind trying to sustain its Verizon customers, thus they have decided to stop funding Verizon users.

This greatly impacts D219 users on Remind because it is one of the highest users of the app nation-wide. For those who are unaware, the Remind app was co-founded by Niles West alum Brett Kopf (’05).  222,153 district-wide messages were delivered last month through Remind and 1,840,482 were delivered last year.

Email notifications will still be available, but the beauty of Remind is that its users can receive text messages. Students are more likely to check their messages than their emails and this occurrence disrupts the convenience of the app. Verizon user and sophomore Enesa Dibra relies on remind to communicate with her teachers.

“I use remind almost every day in the school year. My teachers will always send messages of homework, and just daily information we need to know. I don’t understand why Verizon can’t just continue to work with remind. Receiving email notifications is going to be a struggle since I get so many every day,” Dibra said.

Remind is trying to make it possible for all users from whichever carrier to receive text notifications. T-Mobile user and junior Majila Spahija finds it extremely significant that Remind fixes this issue quickly.

“Although I don’t use Verizon, a lot of my friends and other kids in the school have it,” Spahija said. “Remind is something we use every day to communicate with our teachers. Verizon and Remind’s beef shouldn’t be stressed on the 7 million people who use the app daily.”

Junior Haris Mackic feels very strongly about the situation. He brings up a very valid point as well with Verizon being one of the more expensive carriers.

“I believe that this is unfair towards Verizon users because the company is usually more expensive than all the carriers. With that being said, users should be getting more features provided for them, rather than less. This can also make a large impact on students who communicate with teachers every day,” Mackic said.

Educators blew up the lines of Verizon with constant complaints. The company is having second thoughts about their decision, but it is still not confirmed whether they take it back or not.