About 22,000 students and employees will receive a text message next Wednesday asking them to confirm they would like to enroll in the Wolfalert text messaging system.

Changes in the system aggregator, the hardware that sends the text messages, have led the FCC and phone companies to request an additional step of confirmation for those wishing to receive Wolfalert messages, which are used only during emergency situations.

“The FCC is trying to prevent spam going to text messages,” Associate Vice Chancellor for Environmental Health and Public Safety David Rainer said. “The phone companies have asked N.C. State and those who want to send messages through the system aggregator to document that people want to receive the messages, so that’s what this is all about.”

Rainer said the process was much simpler when the system first debuted some two years ago.

“You used to just register for text messaging and we gave your number to the system aggregator and that was the end of it,” Rainer said. “Now if you’re going to register for the text messaging we upload the file and the aggregator is going to send you a message back asking you to confirm.”

Rainer said personal information would not be given out to the aggregator, just the number, which wouldn’t be given to any other party.

“We don’t give away your cell phone number, we don’t sell your cell phone number,” Rainer said. “We’re not going to use your cell phone number for anything but an emergency.”

Rainer said concerns from phone companies led to the changes in the process.

“The phone companies want the system aggregators to add this additional step to confirm that the people in fact want to receive the text messages,” Rainer said.

The phone companies, Rainer said, were citing an FCC policy as the reason for the changes.

“It’s the phone company that has to comply with the rule the way I understand it. It’s the way the rules are being interpreted by the phone companies.”

Rainer and Environmental Health & Safety Emergency Manager Todd Becker said they don’t think the FCC regulations were intended to apply to systems like Wolfalert.

“We don’t believe that the FCC intended this [policy to apply to] emergency notification,” Rainer said. “We’ve asked the FCC to render an official opinion, but they haven’t done that.”

“The problem is that it doesn’t differentiate between entertainment text messages and emergency text messages,” Becker said. “The FCC never said there was a difference between sending a text message for emergency versus voting for your favorite American Idol person.”

Rainer said through conversations with the FCC he felt Wolfalert and similar systems should be exempt from the policies.

“I’m not an attorney but based on our discussion with the FCC that was implied,” he said. “But you can’t get a hard ruling. Based on our discussion with the FCC hotline, we think it’s being made more complicated than it should be. We had a very simple process which we liked: register, we uploaded your name. Now the process is more complex. There’s more opportunity for mistakes.”

Rainer said the policy existed to prevent organizations from spamming people through text messaging, but his department is concerned about confusing patrons of the service.

“We’re concerned about people getting back a text message that they have to respond to and not knowing why they get it or who they’re getting it from,” Rainer said. “22,000 people have registered for text messaging, so even if 5 percent of the people don’t respond to the message or send the wrong reply–they won’t be enrolled. And that’s a concern for us.”

Becker said if students reply incorrectly, they will receive a message telling them there was an error.

“You’ll get a message back saying illegible reply or inaccurate reply–here are your options.”

Becker said those who don’t respond will be contacted by e-mail to see if they still want the service.

“We can go through and manually resend the text message to them or we can give them instructions on how to reply without being prompted,” he said.

Rainer said while he’s not too concerned about students navigating the new process, he is worried not all who have enrolled for the service will catch on as quickly.

“Students are very adept at using text messages–I don’t know that employees will be as adapted,” Rainer said.