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Now 26 Business days and counting. Still waiting for campaign approval. We only use conversational texting and I completed the form via the Admin Portal. Our "brand" was approved some time ago. Has anyone else's "campaign" received approval yet?

DOC-391239A1.pdf

If I temporarily move a number into inventory that is linked to a campaign will that number be removed from the campaign?

Hi there, I posted this as a reply but it seems to have gotten buried.

Is there any update on the solution @Mike Stowe mentioned regarding the T-Mobile non-usage fee? We don't send any outbound SMS but we do use inbound SMS, so TCR registration is more of a formality for us, but we definitely don't want to get hit with a $250 charge every two months. Curious if you have more details on what y'all are working on for this.

Thanks!

And yes, we are working on a solution to address the T-Mobile non-usage fee and will provide updates as soon as possible.

@Becky-Community_Manager

Sorry, Mark - thanks for prompting.

I don't have specific details about T-Mobile changing their policy for this (I'll double check with Mike and get back to you), but I do know that we are encouraging those that want to continue to have access to inbound SMS to register so there are no potential disruptions in service.
If you are using it for 2FA, I would absolutely register so you don't experience disruption.

Thanks, @Becky-Community_Manager! Yes, we've registered and are waiting on our Campaign to be approved. I was just curious about the RingCentral solution Mike had mentioned re: the T-Mobile non-usage fee (I was quoting his post in the last line of my post above). Thanks for checking with him for me!

post not showing.

Which post, Garrett?

The importance of preventing SMS spam cannot be understated. But the application of these regulations or requirements is preventing individuals such as myself from the lawful legitimate use of these SMS Services.

Since I communicate directly with the public to provide technical services, It's my understanding that sending SMS messages to people that have requested communications from me falls under lawful and legitimate use of the Ring Central service.

Please point me to the requirement that requires me to use the service in the context of a business with a campaign-only use.

Since this attempt to place me and my communications into a category I do not consent to, I must inform you that for every day I am unable to use the service as I intend, my time is lost. I reserve the right to bill you for lost time if you become, or are involved in, interfering with my right not to be subjected to unlawful pressure to conform to a standing I don't consent to, or preventing this matter's timely resolution.

Finally, if you are party to forcing this system onto individuals, this does not change my individual claim of wrongdoing on your part, but since the Federal Income Tax system is designed for employment taxes and not for identifying individuals for their use of services. I suggest that you stop using that system for that specific purpose and find another system to replace it, as I believe this may constitute discrimination.

Scott Larson

All rights reserved.

Scott,
Unfortunately, the requirement is from the FCC and the mobile carriers.
RingCentral is only working to comply with those entities.
If we can assist with questions, we are happy to do so.
Please feel free to shoot an email to Community.Support@RingCentral.com

Could you please provide a link to the updated FCC guildlines? Based on what I've found, the FCC ruling from June 25th, 2020 deemed that businesses that aren't using autodialers or automated messaging services (A2P) are considered P2P and aren't subject to TCPAs restrictions.

I also keep hearing a lot about the The Campaign Registry requiring it, but The Campaign Registry states at the bottom of the page that it "requires Users to follow industry best practices according to the CTIA".

When examining CTIA, section 4.2, Paragraph 2, states that the designation may depend on whether our messaging traffic satisfies the attributes of Consumer P2P messaging described in section 4.1. I know that myself, and I'd assume many business users would fall under this definition, which would allow us exemption from the registration as we should be assigned as P2P and not A2P.

This is my forth post, and have yet to get a response from anyone with @ringcentral or any of the community managers.

My apologies, let me add a quick clarification here - the requirement is not from the FCC. The authority for the carriers to reclassify SMS (as they did in 2021 and continue to enforce) stems from the 2018 FCC decision that SMS is an informational service, thus deferring to the mobile carriers to determine how to best address spam and unwanted traffic.

The mobile carriers and aggregators, not the FCC are the ones that reclassified SMS for non-mobile network originating business SMS providers. This means that ALL RingCentral (and other equivalent providers') traffic is considered 10DLC A2P regardless of how SMS is actually being used (in other words, P2P no longer exists for most businesses using a service like RingCentral), and only the A2P guidelines from CTIA now apply.

Furthermore, while the carriers are currently allowing for unregistered traffic across their networks, my understanding is that aggregators and carriers will soon be blocking this traffic to continue to address spam and unwanted or deceptive traffic. This means any business traffic that is non-mobile originating may be blocked at any time with little or no notice.

On a side note, the FCC did just adopt its first rule focused on "scam texting," so it is likely (in my personal opinion) that while SMS is currently widely unregulated (deferred to the carriers), the FCC will be stepping in more.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Can you please share where it states that all traffic from non-mobile networks such as RingCentral is deemed as A2P, because I couldn't find anything about that from The Campaign Registry or the FCC?

The article you sharing on "traffic is considered 10DLC A2P" again is produced by a 3rd party and does not site any sources.

@Mike Stowe @Becky-Community_Manager @ringcentral I'd love to hear a response to my above question. I haven't seen any articles put out by the FCC, CTIA or the mobile carriers stating the position the RingCentral is taking. If you have something put out by one of these governing bodies/companies I would love to read it!

To clarify, the reclassification of SMS was not done by the FCC or CTIA, but by mobile carriers and aggregators. For providers such as RingCentral, because the primary focus of SMS is business all SMS from RingCentral (and similar providers as reflected on their websites) was reclassified as 10DLC A2P. This is also why there are UCaaS or conversational campaign types within TCR.

Unfortunately, I do not have anything I am able to provide from the carriers or aggregators as this was communicated directly, but searching "10DLC A2P" or "TCR SMS" will provide numerous articles to add context around these changes in the industry.

Lastly, aggregators are starting to stop supporting unregistered SMS traffic. For example, Bandwidth stopped supporting all unregistered traffic March 31, 2023.

I have the same questions. we do not send mass SMS of any kind and only person to person messages when a customer has personally asked us to send them the information via text. I can't even fill out the questions they are asking leading to believe this is just a money grab as well. This absolutely makes no sense at all for us.

So far, I keep reading comments from RingCentral employees that this is required, but almost no links are provided to cite this. The few links I have seen are to a Forbes article that doesn't cite it's sources, links to other RingCentral Articles, statements that the FCC requires it, or statements that it's what The Campaign Registry is requiring. All of that being said, this doesn't seem to be accurate to what I've found.

Based on what I've found, the FCC ruling from June 25th, 2020 deemed that businesses that aren't using autodialers or automated messaging services (A2P) are considered P2P and aren't subject to TCPAs restrictions.

The Campaign Registry states at the bottom of the page that it "requires Users to follow industry best practices according to the CTIA".

When examining CTIA, section 4.2, Paragraph 2, states that the designation may depend on whether our messaging traffic satisfies the attributes of Consumer P2P messaging described in section 4.1. I know that myself, and I'd assume many business users would fall under this definition, which would allow us exemption from the registration as we should be assigned as P2P and not A2P.

My conclusion so far, is that RingCentral is making a mistake and going far beyond what the FCC or The Campaign Registry require, by forcing all of it's clients to register as A2P, including the ones that would correctly be labeled as P2P

If you have any links to newer regulation than what I've found, and not just to other articles I'd greatly appreciate it.

@ringcentral I still haven't heard from anyone about my question above, but for ease, I've included a picture of the CTIA that The Campaign Registry cites as it's governing document, with the primary section in question highlighted. Again, this doesn't include the 2020 FCC ruling that dictated that human made/sent texts, that don't use an automated system are classified as P2P and therefore not subject to the TCPAs restrictions, which is what the CTIA is based on. Please show me where in this document or another release by the phone companies, not a link to your own article that has no links/citations, where it says that all business SMS is P2P (because it's not in the FCC regulation or the CTIA).

I'm having trouble finding information about the extension limit of 49 on a single "campaign".

Does anyone know of a work around for the extension limit or must I create multiple campaigns to cover all of my extensions?

Sorry if this horse is already dead, but I think I saw it twitch . . .

After watching the RC video (twice), visiting the campaighregistry.com website and based on what I've gleaned from this message thread what I think is that a company (like mine, medical management with 300 employees) sending ONLY individual, conversational, person to person messages ("Your telehealth visit will be at 11 a.m. today" or "We need to reschedule your appointment. Please phone the office") . . .

MUST: Obtain consent by phone, voice, paper form, first contact or website before any outgoing SMS.

BUT NEED NOT: Include in for follow up every conversation with options to "Stop," "Unsubscribe" or "Help"

THEREFORE, once I complete the required forms, my users don't need to take any further action or change how they use RC SMS, other than to respect any request to stop sending SMS.

Is this correct?

Very succinct, Randy! Yes, that is correct.

is the $1.50 monthly fee per assigned number? because we have an account with you and have 11 extensions/direct lines...while most of the concerns posted earlier are my concerns as well, I like to ask about that fee?/

Also, if we are not going to register, the plan fee we pay to you should be lower because we cannot maximize your features that are initially sold as free, like that SMS thing...

Dexter, My interpretation of the fees you are referring to is all numbers clustered under a specific campaign - not each number.
If you do not register, there are no fees because access to SMS will be disabled.

Sorry if this horse is already dead, but I think I saw it twitch . . .

After watching the RC video (twice), visiting the campaighregistry.com website and based on what I've gleaned from this message thread what I think is that a company (like mine, medical management with 300 employees) sending ONLY individual, conversational, person to person messages ("Your telehealth visit will be at 11 a.m. today" or "We need to reschedule your appointment. Please phone the office") . . .

MUST: Obtain consent by phone, voice, paper form, first contact or website before any outgoing SMS.

BUT NEED NOT: Include in for follow up every conversation with options to "Stop," "Unsubscribe" or "Help"

THEREFORE, once I complete the required forms, my users don't need to take any further action or change how they use RC SMS, other than to respect any request to stop sending SMS.

Is this correct?

We do not want to do any type of registration. It has been conveyed that mobile carriers "may block" a number from SMS. What is the criteria carriers use to decide to block SMS? What recourse do we have if we feel the criteria is being applied incorrectly or unfairly? How do we dispute it?

Wayne, if you do not want to register, your ability to leverage SMS will be disabled.
The block would reflect any numbers associated with business SMS that are not registered with TCR.
I'm not sure there is a course for dispute if you're not registered.
This is a requirement of the FCC being imposed on carriers and RingCentral is working to help our customers work to be compliant with those requirements.

Hi Becky,

Would you be able to provide any links to the FCC's changes? Based on what I've found, the FCC ruling from June 25th, 2020 deemed that businesses that aren't using autodialers aren't subject to TCPAs restrictions.

The Campaign Registry states at the bottom of the page that it "requires Users to follow industry best practices according to the CTIA".

When examining CTIA, section 4.2, Paragraph 2, states that the designation may depend on whether our messaging traffic satisfies the attributes of Consumer P2P messaging described in section 4.1. I know that myself, and I'd assume many business users would fall under this definition, which would allow us exemption from the registration as we should be assigned as P2P and not A2P.

My conclusion so far, is that RingCentral is making a mistake and going far beyond what the FCC or The Campaign Registry require, by forcing all of it's clients to register as A2P, including the ones that would correctly be labeled as P2P

If you have any other links that could help me understand if I've missed something, I'd greatly appreciate it.

This is leading up to the March 31st deadline.
If you do not register, your access to outbound will be disabled.

Existing number will likely still be able to receive, but will not be able to send. New numbers will not be able to do either.

The only thing I ever use SMS for is receiving 2-factor authentication codes from web sites. I never, ever send SMS messages. If I don't register, will I still be able to receive?

I have the same question -- and I hope someone will answer, though based on what I've seen so far, I suspect the answer is "No, so deal with it." This strikes me as a ridiculous effort to police SMS spam that is at least a decade too late and will, of course, negatively impact companies who use providers like RC. Good grief.

We do not send SMS messages - at all. We *receive* them but only for MFA (multi-factor authentication) purposes from client sites where we must login and confirm identity. If we're not sending, why do we need to register?

We're an enterprise account with 500+ unique DID's, that are constantly adding, changing, and moving with our business. We keep running into problems where even though we registered our campaign and have SMS working for existing users, any new user or DID we add texting is disabled. We're purchasing the numbers new, through RC, are they not automatically assigned to our existing campaign? Like many in this thread we are P2P communication, there's no apps or automation involved.

Any info on how to properly navigate growth and new DID's with this would be super appreciated. We really do not want to put a 20 business day delay on new employees or sales offices for SMS.

Thank you!

Great question, Patrick. Let me get some internal folks to review your question.
Hang tough as I work to get an answer.

It is not yet March 31 and our text messages started getting blocked today, while our campaign is sitting in the approval queue. We literally cannot perform the business we were performing with text messaging. We followed all of the guidelines given by RC and we are still blocked. CSR reps basically cannot help us and say we have to wait up to 20 days for approval. There should be credits applied to accounts for this massive issue..

RingCentral partner/reseller here. I have a "free" demo account as a partner (I actually pay all the taxes, but the service is free). I started to sign up and paid the $4.00 plus change for one number, but then decided to stop after seeing another $36 or so was requested including $18/year. -For a demo account that I might send up to five texts per month from at most-

I plan to use this demo account as a test to see what actually happens if I don't register a campaign. I suppose I won't be able text come April 1st.

I also resell and use several other voice services. Zoom Phone, for example, charges $0 and makes the registration dead simple. Apparently they decided to eat the cost rather than pass on to their customers. At least for now.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Right now it seems like a lot of confusion and lawyers pushing for "defensible positions" and fear of fines, but ultimately I see this all backfiring and people will stop using "traditional" phone and SMS in favor things like WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage, etc. that have no such restrictions or charges and for all intents and purposes do the same thing.

How do we confirm that our TCR Registration was received. I uploaded the PDF last week but have no record that we are actually registered.

Valerie, My team will investigate to ensure it's been received.
Hang tough as we dig into that.

Hi there.

Just a quick question. If we have already signed up and submitted the TCR last year, do we need to sign up on the TCR again?

Did you mean the registration through the Admin Portal?
If yes, then no...you don't need to submit again. My team is looking into this and will investigate the status.

What is taking so long? We submitted the TCR form well before it was due. We are still unable to use the sms/text feature. I confirmed with RingCentral that they received the TCR form and that it was "processing", this was early last week. This was all supposed to be completed on February 10th but here we are and it's February 16th with no updates at all. This is extremely frustrating to be paying for a service and feature that we are unable to utilize.

Jordan, We have a backlog and are working through it as quickly as possible. We apologize for the delay.

Like the other folks responding here, our messages are conversational only. Person to person. Nothing is automated. From all of the responses here, I am understanding that we need to register regardless of type of conversation, or protocol.

However, our business operates out of Toronto Canada, and everyone we text is a resident of Toronto, or surrounding area. Does this apply to us?

Furthermore, regarding the T-mobile nonsense, how would we even find a T-mobile to text to?

Just in general, how do we even determine which carrier is carrying the numbers to which we text?

I really hope RC can come up with a solution to he T-mobile problem.

Good news - if you are only sending SMS/ MMS from Canadian numbers to Canadian numbers you no longer need to register. If you have already registered please look for an email with a form to opt-out of TCR. To have your numbers SMS enabled (while we work to update all CA numbers on our end), please submit a support ticket and request SMS to be enabled for your CA numbers per new guidelines.

If you are sending to any US numbers, you will still need to register.

In regards to T-Mobile, please assume that roughly 30% of traffic sent to US numbers is going to a T-Mobile subscriber (to be exact you can use a phone number lookup service). And yes, we are working on a solution to address the T-Mobile non-usage fee and will provide updates as soon as possible.

Hey @Mike Stowe, any update on the solution you mentioned regarding the T-Mobile non-usage fee? We don't send any outbound SMS but we do use inbound SMS, so TCR registration is more of a formality for us, but we definitely don't want to get hit with a $250 charge every two months. Curious if you have more details on what y'all are working on.

Hey @Mike Stowe, any update on the solution you mentioned regarding the T-Mobile non-usage fee? We don't send any outbound SMS but we do use inbound SMS, so TCR registration is more of a formality for us, but we definitely don't want to get hit with a $250 charge every two months. Curious if you have more details on what y'all are working on.

Can you also respond to the query, how are we supposed to know that the other person we are conversationally texting to is a T-mobile subscriber?

This is excellent news. Thank you Mike!

mary-community-moderator wrote:

"After March 31, 2023, SMS will be automatically disabled for all existing numbers that have not been registered"

Why is RingCentral disabling the receiving of SMS messages for customers who have not registered? Compliance to the new restrictions has nothing to do with receiving, only senders of SMS are affected. Please allow your customers to still receive SMS.

RingCentral is not disabling any numbers that have not been registered for TCR, nor will we. The March 31, 2023 deadline is a carrier deadline at which time the carriers will block, not RingCentral.

While RingCentral is not disabling/ blocking numbers for not being TCR registered, numbers may be flagged by carriers, aggregators, or spam systems - if that happens a number may be blocked or disabled, at which time in order to unblock or re-enable TCR registration is required.

After our application is submitted, the registration process is predicted to be completed in 10 days. After the registration is complete, is that when we can expect our SMS messages to include the opt-in and opt-out options? It looks like we will receive a notice when our registration will be complete. Can that be confirmed and is it at that time of notice we can expect the opt-in and opt-out options to start accompanying our initial SMS messages?

Please allow additional time for the registration process as there is a new manual vetting process being added by Syniverse. This process is expected to add 5-20 business days (depending on their backlog).

From a carrier perspective opt-in/ opt-out requirements are the senders responsibility, however we are working on opt-out management functionality and hope to have this available for all of our customers in the near future.

Page 12 of the CTIA guidelines indicates the different types of messaging content and their associated consent principles. Are the types of messaging content determined by the carrier or Ring Central and then the appropriate consent is applied? For instance, will the carrier determine that the conversation is conversational or informational and decide the type of consent required (implied or express consent)?

Determination of message type and request to demonstrate proper consent may be managed by RingCentral (we have an obligation to ensure carrier policies are followed), aggregators, or the carriers. Because consent can be obtained numerous ways, messages are trusted by default by RingCentral. However, if there are complaints of unsolicited messages/ spam reports you may be requested to demonstrate your opt-in flow based on the type of messages you are sending, or provide proof of opt-in for marketing/ promotional messages.

So if our business considers our messages to be conversational which implies consent, then an opt-in/opt-out message is not required. Additionally, our business is in control of whether or not we would be sending those opt-in/opt-out message? Is that completed through the admin portal? Perhaps it will be more clear when we have been registered, but want to be ahead of the curve.

Hey Michael you are correct in that for conversational messages a specific opt-in SMS message would not be required (as long as they messaged you first, or requested that you message them). For conversational messages you would still need to respect opt-out requests. In the near future RingCentral will be introducing functionality to help with opt-out management (and replies), but that functionality is not available as part of MVP today.

Why is the registration process taking so long?

We registered (submitted our businesses TCR form) through RingCentral. From what I understand, it's already gone through the Ring Central process and now just waiting for TCR approval. Ring Central website says "RingCentral’s TCR registration service level agreement (SLA) allots 10 business days for completion.". It was submitted on Jan 12, well over 10 days ago.

Please accept our apologies. An additional manual vetting step was added to the process (this is for almost all providers), and can add 5-20 business days depending on backlog. We will do everything we can to process your form as quickly as possible, and get it through the new required third party vetting process.

@Loretta Harris I understand the delay is frustrating. We're doing our best to move these forms through for approval.

Can someone please clarify the deadline to register. Our understanding is we have until March 31, 2023. Are other carriers requiring the TCR registration already, are they blocking SMS from RC HVSMS prior tot the March 31, 2023 deadline already?

The $10/mo fee would be added to your RingCentral bill, and would be on top of what you are paying now. This is a monthly fee charged by TCR to manage your SMS registration with the carriers. A full breakdown of potential fees and where the fee is originating is available at https://support.ringcentral.com/article-v2/TCR_registration_fees.html?brand=RingCentral&product=MVP&language=en_US

Patrick, I checked in with the team and they shared this answer:
HVSMS customers were required to register for TCR for their HVSMS campaigns. This would only cover the HVSMS numbers. To continue sending any SMS all customers must be registered on an individual brand (https://www.ringcentral.com/tcr) by March 31st. While carriers are not actively blocking all traffic, they are applying much more restrictive filtering and may block numbers or traffic from going through. HVSMS is also at risk of higher filtering just due to the volume and often repetitive nature. If you are experiencing deliverability issues with your HVSMS number please contact support. If you are not sure if you have already registered for TCR, we recommend doing so as on March 31 any traffic not registered to an individual brand will be blocked.

Our organization falls under one RingCentral customer ID; however, we have six separate locations. Do I need to register for each location or under the one customer ID?

@Susan Pieroni It is per account even if you have multiple locations. The exception would be if your locations are entirely different businesses/business offerings. You would need multiple brands to be set up.
If that is the case for your company, I would recommend waiting until the Service Web registration process is in place before you can have more than one brand added.

I completed the TCR form, on it I noticed that we'll be responsible for a $10 per month fee effective 4-3-23. RingCentral is currently paying this fee. Will there be adjustments to monthly RingCentral billing, or will this $10 be on top of what we're paying now?

The Campaign Registry (TCR) is a third-party company that acts on behalf of the mobile carriers to vet and register phone numbers. TCR charges registration and maintenance fees for all numbers enabled to send and receive SMS. Although RingCentral is currently paying these fees for its customers, starting April 3, 2023 TCR fees will become the customer’s responsibility. For most customers the monthly maintenance fee will be $10 per month, however some customers may incur higher charges as dictated by TCR, depending on their SMS use case.

Chad, I believe this is the case that it will be on top of what you're already paying. From what I read here:

• • There are registration and maintenance fees associated with TCR. RingCentral is currently paying these fees, however, new registrations may incur fees starting February 10, 2023. For customers registered prior to February 10, 2023, you should expect to see new campaign charges (typically between $1.50-10/mo) added to your bill starting April 3, 2023.

I completed the TCR form, on it I noticed that we'll be responsible for a $10 per month fee effective 4-3-23. RingCentral is currently paying this fee. Will there be adjustments to monthly RingCentral billing, or will this $10 be on top of what we're paying now?

The Campaign Registry (TCR) is a third-party company that acts on behalf of the mobile carriers to vet and register phone numbers. TCR charges registration and maintenance fees for all numbers enabled to send and receive SMS. Although RingCentral is currently paying these fees for its customers, starting April 3, 2023 TCR fees will become the customer’s responsibility. For most customers the monthly maintenance fee will be $10 per month, however some customers may incur higher charges as dictated by TCR, depending on their SMS use case.

We utilize texting by texting other business' who agreed to receive text messages from us via a business contract. We are a transportation company who texts drivers if they fail to provide updates on the loads they are handling. If the business doesnt want to receive text/call, we do not do business with them.

The issue is understanding how to fill in the TCR as we don't have any Opt in/out messages nor do we qualify for any high volume texting. How do we fill out that portion of the document as we are really handling the approval prior to receiving the phone number. It seems the document is geared towards consumer protection but fails to address any business to business related text messages.

Our company uses the texting feature on RC for conversational use. I understand that we will need to register before the deadline. I am confused regarding the "campaign" portion of the guidance. We do not send mass texts or campaigns to our clients. Do we need to register a campaign?

This is super confusing, so I apologize. For TCR, "campaign" really means "how you are using SMS." So having a 1:1 conversation would be registered as a "conversational campaign" even though you are not sending any marketing messages.

One of the challenges is that the TCR form does focus primarily on automated or marketing messages at that is one of the primary sources of fraud/ spam that the carriers are trying to address. However, all businesses, regardless of how they are using SMS need to fill out the form and answer all form fields in order to be registered. Please refer to the latest form at https://www.ringcentral.com/tcr as we work to provide the greatest amount of clarity regarding the information TCR is requiring.

We are a Canadian company, operating in Canada, to Canadian customers. Do we still need to register/sign up?

I have a positive update here. Canadian customers who are ONLY sending SMS from CA numbers to CA numbers no longer need to register. Please contact support to have your numbers SMS enabled. Note if you are sending traffic to US numbers you will still need to register.

If you already submitted TCR registration, look for an email coming soon with instructions on how to opt-out of TCR.

Right now Canadian customers will need to register immediately if adding new numbers, and by March 31, 2023 if only using existing numbers. This is due to our aggregators requiring registration in order to send SMS. However, it is a fluid situation and there is a possibility this changes in the future for our Canadian customers.

We are also a small Canadian company and 99% of our customer base is Canadian, unless you find a way around the non usage fee for t-mobile before this is instituted we will be cancelling, because as far as we can find none of our customers or staff even knows someone with t-mobile number.!
One of the reasons we went with ring central in the first place is the Canadian phone companies are 2 to 3 times more expensive then their US counterparts, but if we have to pay a $250 Fee every 60 days that is no longer the case.

Once again, the abusers ruin it for everyone. I have been on the fence about cancelling my RC account for a few years now and this settles it.

RC, if you have lobbyists, now is the time to use them. I am also writing letters to my elected representatives about how this harms normal usage by small business. I suggest everyone else do the same.

We understand that this is a significant, and painful change. We will continue to do everything we can to protect our customers, including advocating on our customers behalf and continuing to provide free allocations of SMS to offset the per-message carrier surcharges that were previously implemented.

Sorry to hear this.
Unfortunately, @dixiebee this will trickle down to all companies eventually.
From what I understand, RingCentral is ahead of the game and advocating for our customers in advance.
If we can answer any additional questions to support you, please reach out to us here or via email. Community.Support@RingCentral.com

The customer support with SMS issues we've been dealing with has been absolutely TERRIBLE. We registered with TCR all approved and we've been having nothing but issues with outbound SMS. We cant reply to customers. RC staff keeps giving me different causes, I apply their recommendations and still nothing. I've had a support ticket out for 2 weeks now, everyone says this is "escalated" and zero solutions. Could someone please help! Do we need a new phone number? Is the number mistakenly blacklisted? no one seems to know anything

I appreciate you being proactive but I don't appreciate these agencies treating us small business people like crooks and spammers.

Maybe my question is obvious. We ONLY use SMS to communicate with our parents, using the app, so that the texts don't come from our personal mobile numbers. Does this change apply to us? We don't do any text "campaigns" or anything like that. At most, we're probably talking about a several dozen texts over the school year. Thanks.

Unfortunately yes. Registration is required regardless of how you use SMS, and if you're planning on sending one message or 100 million messages.

The good news is that your use likely qualifies for a "low volume" use case, which will help reduce the TCR costs. You would not need additional vetting, and would likely only incur the one-time brand fee of $4, a one-time campaign registration fee of $15, and then a monthly maintenance fee of $1.50. These charges are from TCR and Syniverse respectively, RingCentral is not currently charging any fees for TCR registration.

I would encourage you however to send a SMS message at least once every 59 days to a T-Mobile number. T-Mobile does have a very significant non-usage penalty of $250 for registered campaigns that do not send any SMS in a 60 day window to their customers. We are also working on a process to help our customers avoid this potential penalty.

Yes, @roy-haeger. All RingCentral customers are required to register.

i signed up and have been paying for Ring Central since December 2022. I requested the ability for SMS text messaging when i started. my account executive left the company in the month I signed up. I am trying to have conversational texts with my customers. My new account exec Raven Candoy requested I fill out TCR form which i submitted on January 9th. I was told 10-14 business days before SMS would be enabled. there is nothing automated about my SMS. just 2 humans trying to have a normal conversation. it is now business day 21 and i still don't have SMS enabled. i have emailed Ring Central every single day single business day 15 and have gotten nowhere. Brandon Ramirez at TCR ensures me it is not their fault and Ring Central should have processed my form by now. I don't know what else to do and my patience is totally shot. this has been such a horrendous experience and is costing my company money every day because i can not even text my customers. i don't know know who to speak to because it doesn't seem anyone at Ring Central cares about me or my business or the fact that i have been paying for service for 2 months and still can not text

Hi here are my questions below:

1. Are we going to be charged a brand vetting and brand application fee, campaign fee vetting fee and a low volume campaign fee even if we have already been using the HVSMS for the past three months?
2. Also I wanted to make sure that I understand, if we only use RC for calling purposes then there is no need to sign up for the TCR, is that correct?

If you have already registered with TCR (if you signed up recently for HVSMS that should have been part of the process) then no. You will not be charged any retroactive fees that RingCentral has paid on your behalf, only continuous, recurring fees moving forward as outlined in the email notification.

And yes you are correct, TCR registration is specific to SMS. If you are not using SMS you are not required to register. SMS will be disabled on March 31, but if you ever need SMS you will be able to self-register through the Admin Portal to have SMS automatically reactivated.

Not registering for TCR will not impact any other services outside of SMS and MMS. Voice, fax, team messaging, and video will continue to function normally.

When do the first month of payment start? And when you say recurring fees then it means that the only charge we will see the campaign volume fee, is that correct?

For customers who have previously registered for TCR, RingCentral will continue to cover these fees until April 3, 2023.

In terms of monthly charge, most customers should expect to see a flat $1.50 to $10.00 per month charge on their account for campaign maintenance. This is a TCR fee and is dependent on your SMS use case and volume.

I forgot to ask. If there is a violation identified of some sort, then penalty fees already takes effect for all messages sent after this was policy is posted here, is that correct?

That is correct. Technically the carriers started introducing new potential fines and penalties back in 2021, but not all the penalties/ fines have been enforced.

There have also been some recent changes, for example T-Mobile used to have a $50 campaign registration fee, that has been removed and they implemented the non-usage penalty ($250) instead. This change was in the last few months.

For customers using RingCentral, our messages are sent over the correct A2P routes, so they would not be at risk of the $10/msg grey route fine. The P0-severity fine is typically reserved for extreme cases of policy abuse (typically repeated and deliberate).

In most cases the carriers will instead block messages, numbers, your campaign, or your brand (this is problematic as it is tied to your business federal tax ID, meaning they can block SMS regardless of provider) instead of issuing a fine for policy violations/ spam reports. These actions typically correspond to the severity of the violation, and again if there are chronic violations.

https://www.ringcentral.com/legal/sms-mms-content-policies.html

In line with this changes, I'd like to clarify something about the registration process if I were to start a new project this year. As I remember, it should be:

1. Sign up for a Ring Central Account.

2. Enroll for a HVSMS.

3. Sign up for TCR.

Did I get the sequence correctly? Or are there any changes to this?

"The mobile carriers have extended these restrictions to all business SMS, including conversational texting."

"Conversation texting" is a message type that is defined for Non-Consumer A2P (Application to Person). We are not using A2P or automated SMS o bulk SMS in any form. All of our SMS message usage is person to person. According to the above reference CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices our SMS use falls under "Consumer (P2P) Messaging":

"Consumer (P2P) messaging is sent by a Consumer to one or more Consumers and is consistent with typical Consumer operation (i.e., message exchanges are consistent with conversational messaging among Consumers), as described in Section 4.1.1."
(see PDF page 10 referenced above for more info)

Since "Consumer" SMS does not require registration, can we continue to use our RingCentral phone numbers to receive SMS texts without registering?

In 2021 mobile carriers reclassified all non-mobile carrier originating business SMS traffic as 10DLC A2P. Unfortunately, for businesses P2P messaging (and the rules associated with it) no longer exist.

As such, all businesses must comply with A2P SMS rules regardless of how they are using SMS.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/07/05/read-this-if-your-business-uses-text-messaging/?sh=18386d70a576

Treating casual SMS users the same as bulk and automated (A2P) users is insane. The language used by CTIA does not even fit what they are trying to apply it to. "Application-to-Person" SMS are automated software systems for sending SMS messages but they are treating that the same as person-to-person SMS. A text message conversation between two persons does not constitute a "Campaign".

Basically ALL business in the US would be required to register in case ANY OF THEIR EMPLOYEES happens to text another party in the course of their business (unless you happen to be using a major carrier for your phone service).

This looks like a money grab from the phone carriers:

1) If you sign up with them directly you don't have to register.

2) They get a huge database of business contacts.

3) They have a bunch of new revenue sources.

4) And if you happen to not use our service periodically we will even charge you a penalty not sending an SMS to our system. (TMOBILE)

The announcement contained the following statement:

You can, however, port SMS capabilities to another provider, allowing you to utilize RingCentral for message, video, and phone while using a third-party provider for your SMS messages.

I don't send texts to my clients, but sometimes people contact me by text, assuming that "everyone" texts, and of course, I wish to reply to give them information, typically about how to find my office or how to contact me by email.

I would like to port my messages to my actual cell phone, which is a separate number from my RC account. How would I go about doing this?

Please first confirm that your mobile carrier will support this. As long as they support and your device will support multiple numbers you or they can put in a porting (LOA) request through RingCentral support.

Please be sure the request is specific to SMS to prevent voice from being ported as well.

My provider would only allow for porting the entire account, which I do not wish to do. I suspect that is true for most providers.

Thank you for your timely reply. I shall try that.

I'm seeking clarification on the failure to utilize campaign penalty fine.

If I were to register a campaign for our conversational use. (Our company agent calls client, client replies via text, our agent then continues the conversation via text). But then we happen to not send any texts to t-mobile. Are we fined once, or every 60 day time frame it doesn't happen? The fine says one-time, but the wording hints that it would recur every 60 day timeframe.

If we choose not to register, can our numbers still get incoming SMS?

Great question! Let us dig into this with our team.

Unfortunately, it would be assessed every 60 day period where no messages have been sent from the campaign to T-Mobile.

To avoid this penalty, at least one number assigned to the campaign (most customers will have all of their numbers under one campaign) would need to send 1 message to a T-Mobile recipient every 59 days.

For customers who less frequently use SMS we are working on a solution to help our customers avoid this fine (through notification or automation), and I hope to have more information on this for everyone soon.

Hi @Mike Stowe - any update on this solution RingCentral was/is working on to help us avoid the T-Mobile fine?

Seeking some clarification: we do not send automated texts from our business numbers but do communicate with clients regularly using text messages. Essentially, we use the business numbers via the RC phone app as if we they were our personal numbers and call and text clients. Does this still necessitate registering our business and registering for a campaign? And if so, what would we need to register for in order to continue to use the text messaging feature with RingCentral (one of the primary reasons we use RC)? Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately yes, mobile carriers are now requiring all businesses (unless you are using the carrier directly) to register regardless of how they are using SMS. This is part of their effort to ensure only legitimate entities are sending messages (and no one is claiming to be your or another business fraudulently).

Unless you signed up for RingCentral after Dec 1, are adding additional numbers, or have been contacted by your rep to register for TCR, you can wait for self-registration to be available in the RingCentral admin portal on February 10th (just make sure to register by March 31 at the latest). Otherwise, if you need to register now you can do so by visiting https://www.ringcentral.com/tcr and filling out and submitting the manual PDF form.

To register you will need to provide your legal business name, EIN/ Corporation Number, contact information, how you are using SMS, and three sample messages. If you do not have an EIN/ Corporation Number you may still be able to send SMS, but the carriers will add significant limitations including how many SMS you can send.

Hopefully this helps, if you have any other questions please just let me know.

You keep claiming this but I don't actually see it anywhere. RingCentral is requiring TCR registration for conversation, non-campaign messages and blaming the carriers, but I don't see all providers doing this.

Mike Stowe wrote:

"mobile carriers are now requiring all businesses (unless you are using the carrier directly) to register regardless of how they are using SMS"

Where is this documented?

One of the challenges is that the expectation from the mobile carriers and TCR is that these new policies and registration requirements are communicated to you by your CSP (Communications Service Provider). As such "official" documentation directly from the carriers is harder to come by, but I would refer you to the following sources:

• https://support.ringcentral.com/article-v2/Intro-SMS-compliance-campaign-registration.html?brand=RC_US&product=RingCentral_MVP&language=en_US
• https://www.ringcentral.com/legal/sms-mms-content-policies.html
• https://support.bandwidth.com/hc/en-us/articles/4423826434583-10DLC-FAQ
• https://goavant.net/blog/answering-your-questions-about-the-recent-business-sms-change/
• https://www.campaignregistry.com/faq/
  
  

You may also find additional resources from other companies by Googling "10DLC A2P" and "TCR SMS." Please note that all business SMS providers are required to enforce these registration requirements.

Lastly, registration itself is not a new requirement. When SMS was reclassified in 2021 by the mobile carriers there was always an intention to have each brand register (and you will see this mentioned in articles dating back as such). The difference now is that the self-registration requirement is now being enforced by aggregators and carriers, with a strict deadline of March 31, 2023 for companies to have self-registration in place.

We also have Google Workspace with Google Voice for Business. They have not sent any notifications about registering for SMS and have nothing on their admin support site about it.

Unfortunately I'm not able to speak to what Google Voice for Business is doing. I can only provide the information that has been provided to us (as well as to other business SMS providers).

I would reach out to ask them how they are able to avoid the new business requirements including registration, as carriers will be blocking unregistered numbers classified as 10DLC A2P and T-Mobile has a $10 per message penalty that's administered for messages sent over incorrect (eg P2P when required to be A2P) routes.