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SMS Messaging Unreliable
Lovejoy writes "From a Reuters story: Keynote announced today that in its two-week, 26,000 message test-period 7.5% of its text messages never reached their destinations Ouch. I don't have SMS - Is this report consistent with your experience?"
Works here (in Finland) well enough. I'd say 99% of my messages reach their destination.
This is true for the UK sure, but if it fails you get a message back - always.
--
D
"CSLib Menace strikes back"
I don't know what kind of Short Messaging Service Center they have, but I live in portugal where all the telecoms have CMG SMSC's and I I have never seen 1 message lost!
And i use a SMS chat system where I receive around 100 messages per day...
I think the whole problem is with current business models of internet businesses -- with free services, the host really has no compelling reason to guarantee anything. It's a lot easier to just drop a message than to report and gracefully handle an error. Perhaps industry-wide slacking service (just like this) will soon lead to subscription-based messaging clients.
-Ben S.
test@gigglemail.com
If an SMS message is lost on the network, does it make a custom ringtone?
SMS messages can be set to "expire" if the are not delivered in a certain amount of time. All the phones I've owned had this set to "now or never", so if the message couldn't be delivered at the moment it got trashed. Mos users, of course, have no idea this setting exists.
The best service was AT&T, internal SMS, but they still have a 2.2% failure rate. That really is pathetic. Surely a 99.9% success rate is more resonable?
I would be interested in seeing how they failed. Was it inside the networks? Or did the messages never leave the phone? What were the Telco excuses? WHY is SMS so unreliable?
The telco might be dropping out a message here and there to make a few extra bucks on messages.
Here's the math. If 7.5% of 26,000 messages don't make it through, that what..1950 messages that MAY get repeated. So at $0.10 per message and at a resend rate of 20% (390 resent messages) They make an extra $40.
Double the amount of messages and increase the failure rate to 10% and a constant resend rate of 20%, thats $104.
So if a telco runs an SMS service that does some 150,000 messages a day and drops out, maybe 12% of them betting on a %20 resend rate...thats adds up over time.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Quick paste:
Verizon Wireless emerged the victor from what could be one of the country's first cases of wireless spamming.
The country's largest wireless carrier, based in Bedminster, N.J., said it had reached a settlement with Acacia National Mortgage, which calls for the lender to stop sending repeated, unsolicited commercial text messages to Verizon Wireless customers.
Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed, including any possible remuneration for message recipients, who under some plans are charged a per-message fee. Under the Colorado state antispam law on which Verizon based its case, recipients or carriers can sue for $10 per message, plus any actual damages.
Full article is here
I love Verizon Wireless.
I don't know how popular it is in the US, but text messaging is big over here. People chat by text message about all sorts of things too trivial to ring someone about, plus you can text someone from situations where you couldn't call - such as during a class, etc. The networks operators love it - at $0.10 per message on most pre-paid service, it generates tons of cash or very little network traffic. It was the big surprise money generator when they launched GSM.
What puzzles me is that anyone cares whether SMS messages arrive or not. Most of us have voice mail on our phones? Why does anyone want to turn their cell phone into the electronic equivalent of a doggy leash?
;-)
This is a response that is typical amongst Americans. Apparently SMS is useless and why don't people just call instead? However this is ignoring the vast number of SMS being sent by private individuals in Europe where cell phone take-up is much higher than in the US. There must be some reason why it's so popular? It's not all spam (in fact I've never received a SMS spam). There's billions and billions of text messages being sent each year (according to this article 125 million SMS messages were sent on New Years eve in the UK alone), rivalling email in volume, and certainly overtaking it as an easy and quick messaging system for the masses. SMS is quick, simple and easy way to communicate with people. Much easier than phoning, I can SMS 15 friends at once with the simple message "Meet @ Dog & Hound @ 10pm".
So yes - there's many of us who find text messaging a excellent form of communication, much easier than pagers, email or even calling someone. It fills a niche and as such is an astoundingly popular. So it's pretty important that SMS messages arrive or not!
No more "what's the point of SMS" comments please, if you can't figure out what to use it for you're probably just too old to understand what these young-uns are doing with new fangled technology today.
Vodafone's GSM network always tells me when a message can't be delivered (wrong number entered on my part usually - not a cellphone) and I don't think I've ever had someone (reliably)say "Oh I didn't get that text message"... plenty of no-hopers that can't actually use their phones claiming not to get messages (I usually find them and show them how to use their SMS or predictive texting at that point).
Telecom NZ uses CDMA an D-AMPS and I haven't heard of any losses on that side at all.
I am a leaf on the wind
Having not used SMS, I don't know if this is the same thing. We use the text messaging features of our phone/pagers at work all the time for automated systems to alert us to system problems. We've had days where things come in very late, sometimes by many hours.
Unfortunately, we never negotiated an SLA with Verizon, so if their system has problems oh well, too bad.
IMHO, late messages are as bad as ones that never get delivered. How about numbers on that?
It seems that the report just says that the US carriers are shoddy, while all our European and Oceanic ./ ers say they have no problems with SMS.
Should this come as a surprise ? Maybe its time the US carriers realised that the reason people there don't uses SMS is because it's broken and needs to be fixed.
You gotta love the SMS-stories on slashdot. All the Europeans go "What are you talking about? It works great, I use it all the time!" and all the Americans go "SMS, why would you want to use that?"
I have a t68 world and a t28 world. the t68 is for my cingular wireless here in the states. Every third sms croaks with this service, while my Slovenia phone co, Mobitel, can get every sms to me when I cut on my t28 in the States, or anywhere for that matter. I think it really has to do with the provider and the importance that they put on sms. Cingular charges 3 bucks for 100 sms's a month, while Mobitel charges nothing and only 1 tolar a minute for phone calls within SLO and 55 tolars a minute for international roaming for my Cingular phone. Cingular charges 400 tolars a minute (2 bucks, roughly) for a minute to my Mobitel phone. US GSM and mobile phone plans in general are a ripoff. How can Slovenia, while pretty prosperous for a former Yugoslav republic, keep rates so cheap? It can just be 90 percent market penetration alone!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I'm seeing a lot of "Why the hell would someone use a cell phone to message when they can just talk?!?"
Well, besides the giggle factor that comes into play the first time you message a friend who's staring at you from right across the room, my answer would be because IT QUIET!!!
In the movie theater and your mom/boss/significant other wants to know where you are, or why the hell you aren't someplace you're supposed to be? Your phone on vibrate can show you who's calling you, and you can quickly type in a message and reply back with information without disturbing those around you.
On New Years Eve, I was at a Rave at the LA Sports Arena. Do you think I'll really be able to hear or talk to anybody next to a wall of subs blowing out my ear drums? Considering there were quite a few people there, I also get separated from my friends. Where's my buddies? When do I know when it's time to go? How far is Kenny getting with that Bree chick (seriously!)? There would be no way we could talk on our phones, but we were still able to communicate with our SMS text messages.
Now granted, SMS isn't nessecary, but then again, this is Slashdot. How often do we do things that are truely nessecary?
-Kefabi