Allow iMessaging confirmation texts through, regardless of text plan

[srlawren]

Hi there,

This idea came up while I was looking at this thread:  http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/keep-getting-warning-msgs/m-p/58453.  However, this is but one example of this issue, and it crops up routinely on the Community.

The root cause is that iMessage occasionally send a text to a phone number outside of Canada in order to configure a person's iMessaging service.  (I am sure I am greatly over-simplifying this--I'm not an iOS guy, and have never researched the details).  If that person does not have a texting plan, or their texting plan is only Canada-wide rather than international or global, the message will not make it to Apple's service, and will result in an automated reply from PM, and this happens dozens of times over a few days while iMessage tries repeatedly to compelte the handshake.

My idea is that regardless of a person's text plan, if PM can identify these particular messages, let them through.  I'm not talking about the routine message people send each other using iMessage when it has to fall back on Texting (such as texitng from iOS device to an Android device)--I think those message should still continue to require a text plan that covers the recipient's location.  But I think it would be great if the system-generated iMessaging set up messages could be delivered, allowing the person to then use iMessage normally over data as desired.

Why do I think this is a good idea?

1) I don't think it's fair to force someone to temporarily choose an international texting plan just to set up iMessage if they don't otherwise need it.

2) PM does not offer any texting add-ons that could be used as a workaround

3) The resuling bounce messages cause the customer anxiety, concern, and a negative result

4) PM will work around the issue on a case-by-case basis for folks that complain about it in the community; this is manual, presumably expensive (labour each time), and only helps people that actually come to the community to ask about it, and still is a pretty bad user experience

5) the cost of delivering the messages to iMessage should, ignoring any cost to implement the whitelisting, be less than that of delivering all those bounce messages, plus the time required from the community mods for the manual workaround

6) this would really improve user experience for folks on an iOS device, and they typically expect these services to "just work".  Because iMessage is primarily data-based and should only require SMS fallback for non-iOS users, PM customers aren't expecting to require an SMS service for this (unless they desire that fallback).

7) it seems like the right thing to do.

I have no vested interest in this particular request as I'm not an iOS user, but I still think it's worthwhile effort if technically possible.

Thanks for your consideration.

[PBForMe]

I agree, there should be a whitelist of certain numbers like the iMessage international auth numbers and other such services.

I'm actually surprised it isn't already as I'm sure this is a common issue with anybody who ports over with an iPhone and Canada wide only messaging. 

At the very least maybe make a iMessage add on for iPhone users simliar to the blackberry information server addon in days past, if that's even a thing anymore. 

[kav2001c]

Does iMessage actually need to send a reply txt? From what I have seen and what I read online it simply needs to receive a txt (so although a txt plan is required, I am unsure it requires an international one)

[kutzki]

Are you talking about the Read receipts on iMessage? 😛

[kav2001c]

Just for kicks I posted in an Apple forum to clarify. Everyone there said no TXT required.

When signing up you have a choice to use phone number OR email / apple ID

Another interesting thing that came up is there is different functionality if your carrier supports Wi-Fi calling. Telus does this but Public does not.

[Brooke_C]

Hey @srlawren,

You are a wealth of knowledge and thank you for this idea! We have done some research on this, and contacted Apple about this as well. 

Long story short: Apple frequently changes the numbers they use to text customers messages like the message you mentioned in your post. Since they change the number quite often for their own security purposes, we would need to update the list of numbers that needs to be zero-rated on a weekly basis. This would be a manual and cumbersome process, where we would have to correspond with Apple on a regular basis to get their most recent list. For that reason, we won't be zero-rating Apple numbers at this time. Hope you understand!

Alternatively, members that have this issue, should take advantage of our new plans which now offer global text messaging! That way they can receive messages from all over the world while they are in Canada. 

[srlawren]

Thanks for the update, @Brooke_C.  I believe the spirit of the request has mostly been met by the introduction of the new plans, so all is well.  Thanks for doing the legwork, speaking with Apple, etc., I really appreciate the effort you put forward!  Cheers!