Important: Changes to outbound texting
Below is the text of an important email we just sent to all customers regarding outbound text messaging:
We have an important announcement to share with you regarding NumberBarn and the future of outbound text messaging.
Over the past couple of years, US wireless carriers have been working to combat spam and improve the delivery of legitimate text messages. In order to send text messages using local phone numbers, businesses must first register with a 3rd-party reputation authority called The Campaign Registry. Registration includes an approved 10DLC (10-digit long code) brand and campaign in order to send text messages to customers.
Here at NumberBarn we have worked hard over the past couple of years to preserve our SMS service as you have come to expect it. As of December 1, 2024, however, wireless carriers will begin blocking outgoing SMS/MMS messages for unregistered customers.
This means that all businesses that send text messages to ten-digit US phone numbers must register with The Campaign Registry and pay the fees associated with registration.
Furthermore, these regulations affect everyone sending text messages (including person-to-person conversational messages) using any service other than a wireless telephone number associated with a mobile device. Note that this change only applies to outbound texting. You will continue to receive inbound text messages as expected.
Who is Implementing This Change?
These new requirements are not the result of a decision by NumberBarn. The major US mobile carriers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, have introduced registration and fee requirements to reduce unwanted or fraudulent text messages and cover the costs associated with the increase in commercial text messaging across their networks.
What are the next steps?
While these changes impact businesses and individuals alike, the actions you may take moving forward differ. Here’s the current way forward:
If you are a business - We understand that SMS is an essential part of your customer communication and marketing strategy. To ensure that your messaging is not interrupted, you can move your messaging to our sister company, String and we’ll help you register your brand and campaign with The Campaign Registry. Please note that only businesses that have an EIN (Employer Identification Number) will be able to register.
To take advantage of a 30-day free trial of String, in your NumberBarn account go to “Numbers” then click “Messages” and “Activate with String” to integrate String’s intuitive SMS features with your phone numbers. Use promo code 10DLC to register.
As of December 1, NumberBarn will no longer support outbound business and marketing text messages.
If you’re a sole proprietor or individual - You will continue to receive inbound text messages without an issue. We understand that an interruption to outbound texting is less than optimal and are working with our carriers on a new solution for outbound person-to-person texting.
Finally, we want to make it clear that these changes are industry-wide. 10DLC brand and campaign registration requirements and fees are the same regardless of the service provider you choose. Non-compliant providers risk the loss of SMS functionality for all of their customers. More info about 10DLC changes
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We appreciate your continued business with NumberBarn and will notify you with updates as we have them.
FAQ
How does this impact Canadian numbers? If you are sending from a Canadian number to other Canadian numbers, you should not be impacted. If you are sending text messages from a Canadian number to a US wireless number your text messages may be impacted.
How does this impact texting on toll free numbers? NumberBarn has never offered text messaging on toll free numbers but NumberGarage does. A similar campaign is required in order to send text messages through NumberGarage and this will still be supported for the foreseeable future.
Can I still use NumberBarn for voice service? If you switch to String through your account control panel, this will set up what's called "Hosted Messaging" and NumberBarn would still be responsible for the voice service on your telephone number. If you would prefer to port your number to String, we can help, however you'll find that the voice functionality on String is much simpler than on NumberBarn.
If I ported away, will my numbers be impacted? If you ported to a US wireless carrier, you shouldn't have any issues. If you ported to another VoIP/landline service provider, we recommend checking in with them to see if they require 10DLC registration but it's highly likely that they do.
Is NumberBarn offering 10DLC registration? Not currently. We are only offering 10DLC registration through the String service. We will update if this changes in the future.
I don't see an option to activate SMS with String. If you are signed into your account. Go to "Numbers", click on your number, and click "Messages." If you have active SMS you will first need to click "Deactivate SMS" and then you can activate your SMS with String.
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Official comment
Hey Rob Brody, as of this morning, outbound texting isn't working so it appears that only registered A2P traffic from NumberBarn and NumberGarage will be delivered by wireless carriers. As mentioned previously, String can help to register a 10DLC brand and campaign if you have an Employer Identification Number. Otherwise, we are working on a P2P solution for customers and will keep you posted as soon as we have one available.
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This is basically saying that we have less than a week to find a new carrier, port a number over or we won't be able to send text messages to any major carrier. I am assuming from what I'm reading this is 100% correct??
I use number Barn strictly for personal use I probably get 10 or 15 messages a month but it is not for commercial use so in this case the number Barn number is rendered useless under this new rule.
Wish I had a little more notice because porting a number can take 7 to 10 days if the carrier I'm moving to does everything correctly. I ported numbers over before and I've had to go back and forth fighting with the new carrier and one number took over a month. This is very very bad news. I understand the idea to cut back on spamming. Just wish we had a little more notice
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From reading this it seems you need to pay "The campaign Registry" in order to use SMS from anything other than an actual mobile phone - which I never do.
I already dropped all six of my numbers back to "park".0 -
I don't mind paying depending on the cost I already have two cell phones I don't need a third one. I do need the third number can't register the number unless you're actual business is the EIN number is required which you're always supposed to register if you have a employees. I'm pretty screwed
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Hi Rob Brody, the short notice is definitely not ideal. While 10DLC has been in the news for a couple of years, deadlines have come and gone and we've been able to preserve our text messaging service as is. It was only just recently that we learned that December 1 was a hard deadline and so we're trying to make the most of a difficult situation.
I definitely recognize that we left a couple of loose ends here for customers such as yourself and we had hoped to have a better option for you prior to the deadline. Please know that we are actively working to better support outbound texting for sole proprietors and individuals sending messages in a person to person manner. We certainly hope to be able to keep you as a customer and will share updates as we have them.0 -
It's unbelievable that Number Barn didn't come up with a plan to support their customers. I'm sure they've known about these coming changes for quite a while. They have thrown us under the bus with only 1 week notice!
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I recommend updating the website; as of today, it still shows "Send and receive text messages" as a feature in both the Parking (https://www.numberbarn.com/number-parking) and Forwarding (https://www.numberbarn.com/call-forwarding) plans. Unless there some change that hasn't been announced yet? (The "Learn more" page has been updated.)
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Hi All, we have some good news. We just learned that the deadline of December 1 was extended to February 1 giving us more time to extend better solutions and options to our customers. I still recommend that any customers using NumberBarn for business and marketing consider migrating to String and registering a 10DLC brand and campaign but we do have a bit more time and will announce more over the next couple of months.
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That's good news that they extended the time. Hopefully there will be a work around for the casual user like me.
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Have there been any updates on this particular upcoming issue? I know we still have a little bit of time but just wonder if there's been any resolution. Thank you
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Hey Rob Brody, we've definitely had some positive movement but still have some obstacles we're working through. I'm preparing another update to customers but still trying to nail down a couple of things. Sorry to be so vague. More to come for sure.
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It's all good Jeremy thank you very much appreciate the update. If there's really nothing new to say there's nothing new to say. I appreciate you at least letting us know that things are being looked at and hopefully they'll be a resolution. I hate to carry around a third phone if I don't have to but if that's what it comes down to I guess I'll Port the number but I already look like a drug dealer having two phones lol. Three just makes me look that much more suspicious. Thank you thank you looking forward to some updates
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Hi All, here's the updated email we're sending to customers right now. We had hoped for better news and are still actively working daily to have a solution for all customers.
Hi,
It’s been about two months since we emailed you to announce the December 1, 2024 date where unregistered SMS/MMS messages would be blocked by the major US wireless carriers. While we were relieved that this deadline was extended to February 1, 2025, that date is now fast approaching. As a company that values transparency, we wanted to give an update.
The Key Points:
- According to the carriers, they will block unregistered outbound texting February 1.
- If your business has an EIN, you can register your business texting through our sister company String. (We’ll help you do it and even give you your first month free.)
- If you are a sole proprietor or individual, you will still receive inbound texts. We are actively working with carriers to find another solution and to restore outbound texting as soon as possible.
Background:
To review, over the past couple of years, US wireless carriers have been working to combat spam and improve the delivery of legitimate text messages. In order to send text messages using local telephone numbers through services such as NumberBarn, businesses must first register with a carrier-designated authority called The Campaign Registry. Registration includes an approved 10DLC (10-digit long code) brand and campaign in order to send text messages to US wireless subscribers.
As it stands now, any unregistered SMS and MMS traffic via your NumberBarn phone numbers will be blocked as of February 1.
Updates Since We Last Spoke
We’ve been working hard to find a solution that meets your texting needs.
Traditionally our text messaging service has been classified as A2P or Application-to-Person, and this is the type of texting that now requires 10DLC registration.
There’s another classification called P2P or Person-to-Person and this type of traffic does NOT require customer registration. (P2P texting is essentially like your everyday conversational texting directly from one person to another.) The vast majority of NumberBarn customers should be classified as P2P, not A2P.
The good news is that we have made positive strides toward receiving carrier approval for P2P messaging. The not-so-good news is that it likely will not be ready by February 1st. But we are striving to get this classification in place as soon as possible.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
The solution we have at present remains the same as it did a couple of months ago:
If you are a business - We understand that SMS is an essential part of your customer communication and marketing strategy. To ensure that your messaging is not interrupted, you can move your messaging to our sister company, String and we’ll help you register your brand and campaign with The Campaign Registry. Please note that only businesses that have an EIN (Employer Identification Number) will be able to register.
To take advantage of a 30-day free trial of String, in your NumberBarn account go to “Numbers” then click “Messages” and “Activate with String” to integrate String’s intuitive SMS features with your favorite phone numbers. Use code 10DLC to register. Note that you may need to click “Deactivate SMS” to deactivate your existing NumberBarn texting before you can activate it with String. It just takes a few seconds to complete this process.
If you’re a sole proprietor or individual - You will continue to receive inbound text messages without an issue. We understand that an interruption to outbound texting is less than optimal and are working with our carriers on a new solution for outbound person-to-person texting.
Get the Latest Updates in Community Corral
As mentioned earlier, we will continue to work to maintain a robust texting solution for our customers and hope to have this in place soon. To view our original announcement, subscribe to the latest updates, and read frequently asked questions, check out our community post:
Important: Changes to outbound textingWe will notify you with any relevant updates as we have them. Thanks for choosing NumberBarn, we appreciate you and are actively pursuing the best solutions for your phone number and text messaging needs.
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Thank you very much Jeremy for the update. This is definitely not good news. Thought maybe something we get worked out. Now it looks like or either having to port numbers away and pay for a phone that gets used very seldomly just to keep the number or just drop the vanity number and go with a generic. Mine is solely used for P2P and don't need any other features from a cellphone.
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I really hope this is resolved for individuals soon. How else are we supposed to respond to those SMS that asked us to confirm/respond or else something unintended then happens, like automatically cancelling an appointment due to no response? Or worst, stopping us from responding with STOP to unsubscribe from automated SMS.
Without a way for individuals to respond to such SMS, the Numberbarn SMS service is effectively more than useless.
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I do use this for business. Can I just port the number for calls and texts over to String? I don't want to pay an additional $20 per month. Also, does the String interface allow us to paste images? This is a feature that NumberBarn is very lacking. I hate having to save and screenshot and upload it.
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Thus far outbound text messaging is still working for unregistered numbers. It appears that the February 1 deadline may be extended but we're still awaiting official word from our carriers.
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You beat me to it jeremy. I tested my number Barn app number to two different networks AT&t and T-Mobile and both of them went through fine. I assume that it's going to be a rollout that may take a little bit of time to hit all networks but again what do I know.. fingers crossed it'll take them a while and maybe a solution will come down the pike before.
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I just tested my T-Mobile to number Barn text and it goes through of course and then I replied back from number Barn to my T-Mobile phone and it went through. Maybe the whole network hasn't been updated yet but thank you for the update that way I can keep an eye out in case I text someone and I don't hear back I can try and contact them from a different number
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I never heard, does String work like Number Barn in that it can handle my calls and texts and I can port everything to String? Or do I have to pay $20 a month for NB and $20 a month for String now?
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Today I am having lots of blocked text messages that I am sending to different carriers.
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Hey Rob Brody, I'm surprised anything is getting through to your T-Mobile line. Keep me posted if that continues. Maybe there are edge cases we don't know about.
RobertReese, you can definitely fully port your number over to String and do away with NumberBarn. Just make sure you have an EIN for your business. The voice features include call forwarding to a single number, inbound VoIP through browser or app, outbound calling and voicemail. There's no auto-attendant menu currently.
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Just wanted to confirm that T-Mobile is now blocking incoming messages from the app. Worked up until yesterday today can't get it on any of my other cellular phones.
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so i linked to string for messages and started the 10dlc campaign. once approved will i be able to use the number on numberbarn or will i have to use string for texting?
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Even I m facing same issue unable to send any message to anyone
And please find some alternative solution apart from string because we already paying for numberbarn and after that we also have to pay to string for text messages0 -
I can confirm you can port the number to String and handle calls and texts from there, and it will in fact cancel your Number Barn subscription. The price is the same, so you are really just moving it to String. The 10DLC thing is annoying though. I have to come up with a website, privacy policy, opt-in, and opt-out functionality now. I just reply to my customers when they text my number. This is dumb. spammers/scammers ruin everything nice.
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This whole turn of events makes me wonder: how is it that Google Voice allows me to have a virtual number and send out text messages? Gives me hope that Number Barn can sort this out as well for individuals so we can reply to messages sent to us on our NB phone numbers...
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