In light of the disastrous events that transpired in Brussels, Belgium yesterday, most American carriers are currently offering free calling and texting to the European country as a nod to all those concerned, with friends or relatives currently abroad and endangered. This is a very considerate approach on behalf of companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, that have guaranteed that no fees will apply starting March 22nd and lasting through 31st. Several hours from the original announcement that AT&T made, T-Mobile also started offering free calling and texting to Belgium from within the United States.
The international fee wavering that carriers are practicing right now is a method of letting you contact your friends and family that may be currently stranded within Belgium, in the event where they cannot find or afford to use the internet during their stay there. During times of dire need and concern such as this, international solidarity is but one of the first steps towards putting an end to attacks of terrorism and the likes.
Every single company that provides mobile phone carrier ability, however, will work differently during this time. Verizon is not charging calls and text that are made to Belgium between March 22nd and 23rd. Meanwhile, AT&T is crediting all the charges as a result of calls or texts to Belgium starting 22nd and until March 28th; in this case, charges will appear on your bill but will be credited back to you later.
Sprint has decided to drop the calling and texting fees too, and increased the time frame all the way to the very end of this month (31st), and made sure this offer applies to Virgin and Boost as well. Lastly, T-Mobile has started offering the same yesterday and will continue doing so until the 25th, this Friday.
This is not the only example of support provided by a communications platform in light of the terrible attacks that resulted in the loss of many lives and leaving over 170 wounded. As soon as the news made it to Facebook headquarters late at night, the Safety Check feature was once again made available immediately after, allowing users who are detected by location services, GPS or IP as being in Brussels to mark themselves as safe and send push notifications to friends via this means to let them know they are unharmed.
Airbnb is one of the other names that are waiving their service fees for people checking in Brussels by March 25th.
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