Verizon has restored service to our short code, 99503. In an effort to level with our customers, here’s what happened. Cell phone companies operate closed private, proprietary networks that are drastically unlike how the Internet operates. For a company like Poll Everywhere to setup a short code, we must negotiate with each wireless network operator independently. This process is known as “provisioning”.

The Verizon outage was blatant neglect on Verizon’s part; they basically screwed up provisioning paperwork which resulted in our 99503 number being disconnected from their network. As it turns out, a large swath of other companies were also disconnected from the Verizon network at the same time.

Here is the good that came out of this:

We were able to quickly switch our paid customers over to the backup 41411 short code and communicate how folks running a poll this weekend could continue uninterrupted. The 41411 short code was provided by our friends at Textmarks, a great service by the way.

We have been assured by Verizon that this problem has been fixed and it will not happen again.

We implemented an announcement system to more quickly deliver messages to customers using our application. Now if there is a really important message we need to send, you will see it when you login.

Finally, in the near future we will be building a page where you can check on the status of our short codes if you suspect there are any network issues.

We take reliability very seriously at Poll Everywhere. We know that when our customers are using Poll Everywhere in front of live audiences, they’re under extreme pressure and it just needs to work. While outtages occasionally happen, the least we can do is be up-front with our customers, fix problems as fast as we can, and take measures to prevent them from ever happening again.