SMS Messaging Unreliable 551
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Time limit (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, SMS Is Unreliable (Score:3, Informative)
AT&T got me started on SMS with a "free for now ..." package, then switched to one where incoming is free, and outgoing costs 10 cents each. So I adapted and basically never send a text message from my phone. However, it is handy that you can e-mail messages to an AT&T cell phone at 5055551234@mobile.att.net (i.e. insert appropriate phone number) for no cost. So I regularly e-mail my wife's cell phone from my desktop.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. [wirex.com]
Immunix: [immunix.org] Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase [wirex.com]
Re:status request (Score:2, Informative)
Re:'Bout time someone noticed this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Works Here (Score:5, Informative)
I'd send about 10 messages a day and have been doing so for about 4 years now and have had a total of about 5 Message Failed reports.
Re:Works Here (Score:2, Informative)
No problem in Czech Republic either, with a testing period of something like, umh, 3 years.
Only messaages I've ever seen lost were the ones sent from internet (no wonder, since they are free) and even that is very rare later on.
Re:Sure, but you're told (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SMSC (Score:2, Informative)
Here nobody pays for receiving SMS, except if they were sent by a service requested by the client (eg: Stock quote, wheater,
I've also never received SMS Spam, because sending SMS is very expensive and it doesn't pay to send SMS Spam! (At least here in Europe).
Anyway, if I do receive a SPAM SMS, I'm certanly not gonna pay for it!!!
Hm (Score:3, Informative)
Well for what it's worth,
1. International (roaming) messaging is a disaster. You're lucky if anything arrives, and if it does, it can easily be delayed a few days. Once it gets through, you're likely to get the message several times - people reported up to seven times. Can you say ACK ?
2. During peak loads, it looks like the (Belgian) operators give priority to packets originating from subscribers -- ie people who are not using a GSM-version of a calling card containing n minutes / m messages. This was especially obvious at new years' eve -- everyone I know with a subscription got through with every single SMS; people with a card got exactly zero messages through the stampede. If delivery fails, you get a notice though, and afaik you're not billed.
Re:IN THE USA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Failure Rate (Score:2, Informative)
I haven't had a message that actually failed for more than two years now I guess.
In Greece no SMS gets lost ever! (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, mobile users in Greece use SMS messages more often to communicate that actually making a call. The phone companies also know this and make much more money from SMS that calls. The also have special offers for sending SMS messages cheaply while the call costs are very expensive (and it is very popular).
In this new year's eve (the time when the network has the highest traffic) 50 million SMS messages were sent in 15 minutes (for the population of Greece that is about 5 SMS messages per citizen)!
Re:Yes, SMS Is Unreliable (Score:3, Informative)
Surprising (Score:2, Informative)
I have my cellphone set that for every SMS I send out, I'll get a report on it's status. 'Pending' if it hasn't arrived, 'Recieved' if it has.
90% of the time, they arrive instantly. Delay's are usually attributed to the recieving end because his/her cellphone has been switched off, battery died or their SMS box is full.
Except for things that need urgent attention, I find SMS to be very reliable. More reliable then email if you ask me. Email has the tendancy to subject itself to Murphy's Law everytime anything important has to be sent out or is expected.
With the mass popularity of SMS in Europe most carriers have had to invest in keeping up with the demand in sending messages. I wouldn't be surprised if they made more money with SMS then through regular phone calls. People rarely make any phone calls anymore.
And since there is a cost with every SMS sent, it still remains spam free.
Delivery reports (Score:2, Informative)
Yahoo Messeges (Score:2, Informative)
With the miserable rate, I added my original number/email address to the service and subscribed to all the same alerts. I was getting all my weather every morning for the first week or two, but now I only get weather once a week and I never get news updates.
There is a reason I always have to ask my friends if they got my SMS
Re:Why not just call? (Score:2, Informative)
Mobitel.si vs. Cingular (Score:5, Informative)
Re:at best 3% failure rate (Score:4, Informative)
SMS is never intended to be reliable. There are many places that the SMS can be lost. So, lets go through a description. :) Before we begin, let me prefix this by saying it's all GSM, and probably wrong (going from memory), but probably close enough.
Acronyms:
Your handset is connected to a base station. The base station talks to the SMSC and gives the SMS to it to deliver. The SMSC then attempts to forward it on to the destination SMSC, who will send it to the destination BS and finally to the destination phone.
Now, add in the fact that a destination phone may not always be available to receive the SMS. It may be outside of signal range, have a dead battery, or simply be turned off. So the destination SMSC has to store the SMS. The SMS is usually lost because the SMSC has to flush it, like a congested router.
The next place that it can be lost is in the originating SMSC. Consider, it takes a _lot_ of negotiation between carriers to get links set up, and add more. Cost/SMS, payments, etc have to be agreed. Now, imagine you've saturated that link and need to send another message. Yep, it queues up on the sending SMSC too, only he doesn't care as much because you're not his customer. :)
Let's look at some math:
An SMS is an unreliable, time limited message. It doesn't carry long term value, and is usually used for "ping" type messages. Top it off with TV shows receiving votes by SMS which result in rates going from 100SMS/second to 500SMS/second, and you get an idea into how hard the problem can be.
Jason Pollock
I'm surprised. (Score:1, Informative)
Cheers!
Kahunga the Behemoth.
Quiet!!! (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:Works Here (Score:2, Informative)
For me, I've been lucky enough never to have lost a sent SMS other than at special occasions (new year's).
definitely not what i'm seeing (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, you get a notification immediately on the phone if the message was delivered or not, just like when you send email. In addition to that, there's a return receipt type system that many people use. I personally don't use it because I've never had any problem with messages not getting through, but I know people who do use it and I've never heard them complain about messages getting lost.
I'm wondering if the SMS messages talked about in the article are really GSM SMS messages? It seems that all European users here are saying that they have no problems what so ever. And this study was made in the USA. Considering that GSM is hardly used at all in the USA, I'm kinda wondering if they are just using "SMS" to describe whatever proprietary text messaging systems are in use in the USA. The true SMS is that of the GSM system, where you can send an SMS to any other GSM user in the world, regardless of their or your telco, with litterally billions of messages sent every day (more than email, as a matter of fact).
Works always, with proof (Score:4, Informative)
In europe the phone tells you the moment you send your message if the network has accepted it or not.
If the network has accepted your message for delivery, it will try to deliver it for a certain amount of time (this is configurable on the sender's phone), I have set mine to 72 hours.
You get a delivery report the moment the network has accepted your message, and another one the moment the intended recipient has gotten it.
If after the delay the message couldn't be delivered (read: recipient cellphone was offline during all this time) you get a delivery report for failure, so at least you know it's failed.
This works in almost ALL european countries, the few exceptions are certain operators (like Bouyges Telecom) which filter SMS coming from foreign numbers.
I'd say the service is great, reliable, informative and cheap. As a result, SMS has mostly replaced pagers in Europe.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Learn more about GSM (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/09455921
The GSM System for Mobile Communications
Mouly, Pautet
From the people who worked on the standard.
Also, note that in countries with a properly working GSM network (that is, almost anywhere except the US), SMS do work just fine despite the fact that they have no reliability guarantee and no maximum delivery time guarantee BY DESIGN.
Also, most people are using SMS delivery notifications to get information if and when their SMS has been delivered. That is, you get notified by SMS if your SMS has been delivered, with a timestamp, or are notified when your SMS has been delayed or lost, also with a timestamp. Using this backchannel and a simple timeout, reliable SMS delivery and notification can be implemented just as TCP is being implemented on a protocol like IP that just guarantees "best effort" delivery of packets.
Finally, why is SMS popular? Because it is quiet and it is asynchronous. You do not have to answer the phone in order to receive an SMS, but can handle the issue when you are ready and have the time. In Europe, you do send an SMS for just about everything, unless the matter is urgent and requires immediate attention of the callee.
Kristian
Hey, that's.... (Score:3, Informative)
If you're into SMS, you might do well to remember that company: I believe that Logica and CMG (now LogicaCMG) together have 85-90% of the world market for SMS software.
So if you lose a message, you know who to call.