The issue started three years ago when the FCC made a substantial change in how they view text based communications. Prior to this point, text messaging fell under the same rules as phone calls. The FCC required all phone companies to accept all phone calls on their platform, regardless of what phone company or carrier initiated the call. Essentially saying “If you want to be part of America’s telecommunication infrastruture, you have allow complete accessiblity to your network from all other companies.” The change with text communications occurred when the FCC re-defined texting as a “data service” instead of a “communications service”. Data services do not fall under the same requirement, which opened the path for cell phone companies to introduce their own regulatory and fee process.