AT&T: Please stop playing games
February 28th, 2008 | by Greg |If you’re reading this you most probably already know that Verizon prevents its customers from sending SMS to themselves from the Rebtel web site. These SMS messages contain local U.S. phone numbers that allow Rebtel users to make low-cost or free international calls.
Verizon also prevents its customers from receiving SMS from Rebtel customers outside of the U.S.
Well, it now appears that AT&T Wireless has started playing games with SMS, targeting messages that its customers send to themselves or receive from friends using Rebtel services – both from http://www.rebtel.com as well as from Rebtel’s free Facebook conference call service, Group Talk.
To avoid the indictment of blocking Rebtel SMS, it looks like AT&T has turned all SMS from Rebtel services into what’s called Flash SMS. As a result, the messages are only temporarily stored when displayed; as soon as you close the message, it disappears and is not automatically stored in the phone’s Inbox.
I’m told by my more technical colleges that this is no coincidence – that there is a trigger value that has to be set by AT&T to make the SMS into a Flash SMS, instead of a normal message.
I know this is happening because I’m an AT&T Wireless customer and experience their nasty trick regularly when I receive Group Talk notifications for free conference calls. And, friends who are also AT&T subscribers report the same experience.
So – Shame on you AT&T Wireless. This is a dirty trick right out of the Verizon playbook, and it’s time to stop.
