Email to SMS service discontinued.

[notdavis]

I found out this morning that Email to SMS has been discontinued as a service.  I found this out because I never received an emergency text message. 

Rogers never notified me/did notify me on a bill (I looked at my bills)/didn't notify me because I wasn't "subscribed" to this service (I've been using since the 2000s). The supervisor and business support don't have any replacement solutions.

What does Rogers do to wake up their employees when the network breaks in the middle of the night? Or do they just plan it for the day, and reaching everyone fails because the network is down and thats why it takes so long to fix it? 

Other than switching to Bell or Telus, what are other solutions, 3rd party email to SMS providers? 

***Added Labels***

[Christopher77]

My concern is the instant notifications via text from security alarm triggers or alarm notifications. Email notifications will be lost due to email volume.

[Solarguy]

Same here.  Missing critical alarms from multiple power stations.  HUGE public risk!!! Who can I call???

[Pauly]

Unfortunately you can not call anybody, Your company is using a service which you were not paying for but now its gone and discontinued. Your boss now has to set up an email on your mobile device which by the way, is just as reliable and instant as a text message is, and use the email client on your phone,   one good thing about this, is it is now going from email to email instead of email to text, so you will get a proper full message with no portion of the message cut off.

[57]

You can also ask that the "alarms" (or any other notices required) are sent out as texts (or phone calls) to begin with, rather than e-mails.

[Pauly]

my pharmacy can send me both an email OR a text OR Both to tell me about my perscription,  I dont see how in today's day in age a company is using such an archaic way to communicate with their employees or send alerts?  we are in 2023, not 1999 anymore.

[Christopher77]

The service was part of the monthly fee, in the past it was a "standalone" charge (add-on) then rolled into the monthly plan. 

[Christopher77]

Agreed, but not that simple.  Most systems were designed around this platform.  ADT for example, cannot send direct SMS/text. 

[dontbedaft]

Firstly to echo the sentiment that this is very poor customer service from Rogers to deprecate a service without informing those who use it.

I also find this option very useful for emergency alerts from systems that send email alerts - I don't want to keep checking my work email on weekends and evenings just in case there is an emergency - I would rather get a different kind of notification when I need to go check it.

After some poking around, I have discovered that there is a service offered by a site called mailpro.com that fills this gap. Mostly it seems to offer a service to send marketing emails, but it also has an option to send email to SMS messages. It cost US$9 to get 100 credits (a credit gets used up for every message sent, so this will last a while for rare emergency alerts messages).

I am not affiliated with this site in any way but thought others might find it useful too

[Solarguy]

Thanks for the info

[Solarguy]

I just sent a message and asked the team to forward it to the CEO (Mr. Staffieri) with the concerns about the cancellation of the service.  I am hoping to see a response.

[RogersCorey]

I understand that this is a tool you were using. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you. This tool presents technological limitations and is being discontinued. 

Currently we don't currently have a product available to replace this one. If you are an emergency responder, volunteer, hospital employee or in disaster recover, please reach out to your Account Executive (AE) to discuss your account options. You may be eligible for Hypercare.

Regards,

RogersCorey

[tannera]

I work for a company that bans cell phones from entering the site. This means being able to email to SMS worked great for keeping in touch with my kids and husband. It's terribly inconvenient that it is no longer supported by Rogers.

[moo1]

Because in the '90s, SMS worked way better than a smartphone app does today.  

What you're suggesting requires reliable internet access.  

What we've been using barely required intermittent cellular service.

What we used to use was a pager, which could work just about anywhere -- as in basements, mountains, beaches.

I can go on vacation if I can be alerted to problems.

No details required.

[Peter_D]

The reason I use both email and SMS, for different purposes is that I can set different notification plans. I don't want to get "urgent" notifications for every email that comes in. Also, I can set SMS notification so that it will remind me every 5 minutes until I read the SMS. Don't want that with emails.

[Pauly]

Thats nice that you have valid points I never disagree with people having a valid reason, but the fact is, regardless if it had 100s of valid reasons its discontinued, no amount of arguing will bring it back, now is the time to start searching for a third party solution or using email instead.

[dontbedaft]

Personally I don't have any issue with the Rogers choosing to deprecate the service. What I am personally frustrated about was not being alerted about this _ahead of time_. 

[Christopher77]

I Agree, no point in arguing. But the more customers that are contemplating on leavening, or have left Rogers for Bell (or another provider) has gotten noticed by Rogers. I just completed a Survey from Rogers specifically referencing the email to SMS service. This is now months after its retirement. It was a lengthy survey, with a few trick questions to ensure engagement for accuracy.

[pgerard]

Not the same. We don't want to check work emails after hours to not get sucked in the other work related emails. But we want to be notified of urgent issues in a timely fashion. And it doesn't matter if we get the whole message, if we get a txt, we know we have to check work email to get more info. It is annoying that the feature is taken away, especially given how much we pay for Rogers service.

[LordDrakkon]

E-mail to text has basically been retired by all Canadian and US carriers so switching won't change that.

[Christopher77]

Incorrect, Bell and Telus continue to offer this service.  I have received multiple email to sms notifications this morning.   

[LordDrakkon]

I came from Telus and the service never worked the few times I tried to use it. Inquiring with support literally got me the answer that it was being terminated to reduce spam messages through texts.