UF will test its new emergency text messaging system Thursday, hoping to reach about 67,000 registered students, faculty and staff, said UF spokesman Steve Orlando.
The test will be the first one with UF's new provider, ConnectED, which replaced Acceleration, a local company.
UF is paying the new provider $33,000 a year, Orlando said. Acceleration, which was on campus for less than a year, was paid at a rate of $25,000 a year. Before that, Mobile Campus provided the emergency messaging system for free.
However, in January, a former employee of the company accessed the system and sent a message to about 40,000 students, faculty and staff that read: "The monkey got out of the cage."
Orlando said UF replaced Mobile Campus because it no longer wanted to provide emergency messaging services.
He said ConnectED is able to send up to 3 million text messages per hour.
The test will occur between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m Thursday, and users should get a text message Wednesday notifying them of Thursday's test.
All students should get the message because they are required to register for the service. Faculty and staff can choose to register or not.
Those who use T-Mobile will need to respond to Thursday's message in order to receive future emergency messages.
UF tries to test its service about 4 times a year, Orlando said.
When UF sent out an emergency alert in response to Hurricane Fay in August of 2008, 48,823 registered phones, out of about 71,000, received the message, according to Alligator archives.
