This really seems like a common sense feature and I’m not sure why it doesn’t exist.
3 Likes
Various people have been asking for this for several years. It’s something that should be a basic feature.
1 Like
I’ve always gotten the impression that there’s really no benefit for them to block individual SMS messages. With voice calls, if something is blocked, nobody gets charged — not you and not the carrier. But SMS works differently. From what a Verizon tech explained to me years ago, once an SMS hits their gateway, they get charged for it. If they were to block it at that point, they can’t bill you, but they still have to pay on their end. That was Verizon’s logic, and if that’s how it works for a huge carrier, it probably applies even more to a smaller provider like voip.ms.
The only time carriers do block is when a number is spamming multiple customers. In those cases, they can block it further upstream before it ever reaches them, so they’re not charged — and then everyone on their network is protected from that sender. But for individual user‑level blocking, there’s just no financial incentive for them to implement it.
My Verizon text messaging allows me to block numbers as spam.
Unless you’re referring to blocking at the network level, my Verizon service also allows me to block numbers as spam. However, if I search for those messages, I can still find them stored in a blocked folder.
I’m really disappointed that VOIP.MS does not have the ability to allow us to block SMS messages from specific numbers… VOIPO had this and it worked very well. Since VOIPO went under and I was basically forced to move and give up a year or two of prepaid service to them, I’m really disappointed that VOIP.MS does not have this feature at all.
Oh, I get it. Can’t VoIP.ms just explained that they get charged either way and implement blocking but say there is still a charge? I would be fine with that, with them saying “hide texts from the following” so not a block, but just hide?
I see how if all customers blocked a few numbers and it ended up being thousands of texts from blocked numbers with no charge, but VoIP.ms still paid, that they couldn’t do that, but as a customer, texts cost barely anything. I just don’t want to be annoyed, distracted, and have my time wasted. I can pay the .01 cents or whatever it is.
I agree. If they have to charge, then do it, but allow a block list so we don’t have to receive the texts from these people who refuse to honor the “STOP” that they ask you to do. It would also be nice to have some way to see who these 5 digit codes belong to so they can be contacted, if possible.
Any interest in adding a SMS/MMS number blocking feature to MMSGate2? You will still get charged for the message, but it will block the message before it get to the Linphone app. The message will be in the logs, marked as blocked.
I think that would be a genuinely useful feature, especially if the blocked messages still remain visible in the logs. That gives you the best of both worlds: the message doesn’t reach Linphone, but you still have a record of what was blocked if you need to check it later. Being able to block by number or perhaps by a simple pattern would make it even more flexible. I like that kind of approach in systems like Phonexa too — blocking something shouldn’t necessarily mean losing the visibility around it.
Cool. I’ll start looking into it.
Done - MMSGate2 now has number blocking.