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?"
Having worked in the WAP world (Score:3, Interesting)
WAP utility (Score:3, Interesting)
Then everything got slower and slower, as if a single 386 pc was acting as gateway to the entire network (it should take two seconds to download a page, not ten!) and the client decided to crash (really crash! I had to unplug the battery) when it got to the final screen (which said which trains to catch). So I stopped using it.
Perhaps they decided to send 2049 byte pages and I had a 2048 byte machine, who knows. It just seems that the actual service did not live up anywhere near the (very limited) technical specifications.
Works Here (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Works Here (Score:2)
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:Works Here (Score:5, Funny)
-Bill
Re:Works Here (Score:2)
Re:Works Here (Score:2, Funny)
Sure, but you're told (Score:5, Interesting)
--
D
"CSLib Menace strikes back"
Re:Sure, but you're told (Score:2)
I mean, if it is, how can you be sure you always get back a reply if SMS messages aren't guaranteed?
Re:Sure, but you're told (Score:5, Informative)
This was sent from my phone... (Score:4, Funny)
psxndc
SMSC (Score:5, Interesting)
And i use a SMS chat system where I receive around 100 messages per day...
Re:SMSC (Score:2)
Yes, but would you know it if you had lost it?
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.
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!!!
Failure Rate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Failure Rate (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Failure Rate (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, over here in the States nothing is too trivial to make a cell phone call about, especially when driving it seems.
Not my experience (Score:3, Interesting)
I use SMS like I use email. In fact, it's nicer, since you don't have to wait for your friends/family to be at their PC (if they own one) and online.
'Bout time someone noticed this (Score:5, Insightful)
-Ben S.
test@gigglemail.com
Re:'Bout time someone noticed this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:'Bout time someone noticed this (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:'Bout time someone noticed this (Score:2)
Don't you pay for every sms you send? And a high price at that!?
For a service that never was ment to be reliable to start with and only uses surplus bandwidth in the mobile networks you'd expect to pay a very low price per message.
That's why your messages sometimes takes ages to deliver.
If there is no surplus bandwith in the controll protocol when your message gets to the top of the queue, it gets placed at the bottom of the queue again. =)
If you're in an area with lots of mobiles changeing cells all the time, like in a city, there might be very little bandwidth left over for sms.
At least, as far as I know, it used to be this way. Maybe they've changed the way things are handled, since reliability and speed seem to have increased lately.
But I always activate the "delivery reciept" funktion.
That way I *know* when my message has been delivered.
I started doing this after having an important message being deliverd more than 12 hours after me sending it.
If I don't get a delivery reciept within a reasonable time, I can always make a phonecall instead if it's important and timecritical. =)
I've had bad experiences (Score:2)
Re:I've had bad experiences (Score:2)
Depends a *lot* on provider (Score:2, Interesting)
The biggest problem, however, is when I send messages to Europe. For months at a time, it will work fine with a certain provider, and then no messages will go through. Sometimes the problem is only one-way. It depends on which provider I send from here to which provider I send to in Europe.
Bottom line: I've had no problem sending nationally, but messages crossing the Atlantic sometimes get lost.
The zen of a lost SMS (Score:5, Funny)
If an SMS message is lost on the network, does it make a custom ringtone?
Time limit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Time limit (Score:5, Interesting)
YES!! (Damn mod points - never there when you need them)
A year+ ago I was trying to set up system-automated cell text messaging from Peregrine ServiceCenter to the Verizon phones carried by our sysadmins. Would only work about 50% of the time, so we scrapped the idea and reverted back to the Hell^Hp Desk calling admins.
Long story short, I went through 3 levels of support at Verizon to figure out that this was the problem only to subsequently find out there was no way for us the change the expiration through their service. Wonder if that's been fixed yet?
I know... (Score:5, Funny)
By the way...
- Bob, your wife wants you to get a gallon of milk on your way home
- John, the big proposal was a huge success with the suits
- Mary, wear the pretty satin thing for the concert tonight
- Bill, something about K-Y and a bullwhip...ew...
Is that because the network sucks... (Score:2)
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]
My experience with Sprint (Score:3, Interesting)
The second type they have is the "PCS Short Mail Message". This is the one that claims compatibility with non-sprint customers, and is presumably the SMS message. I've probably had 20% of these dropped as I was testing. Now the real problem is that on my phone (Treo 300) you cannot read these messages, you need to click on the URL which sends you to the sprintpcs page, from which you must log in and read the message. This is annoying enough as it is, but the real problem is the fact that the sprintpcs page, for whatever reason, doesn't render on the phone itself. Sure, it works in Mozilla, but the point is to have them at your fingertips, not your desktop.
Sprint has a free web page where you can send the "One Way Messages" so it doesn't cost a thing. It doesn't even require cookies or anything, so you could even automate it with a brain dead shell script.
I wanted to have a simple indication when I get new emails when I'm out and about, so I set up a procmail rule that pipes a copy of certain emails to a program email2pager. This program determines if it should send a message (time of day, if I'm active on the mail server, etc) and then scans the email for the Subject and From, then goes and grabs the first bit of the message (stripping MIME headers, "So and so said", commented text, remember, 160 characters max) and then sends it to a second perl script (misnamed sms-sprint) which uses LWP to connect to the Sprint page and send the message.
It works without sending the whole message to Sprint. Anything that is sensitive should have been sent with PGP, of course.
If anyone is interested in the scripts, let me know.
Re:Yes, SMS Is Unreliable (Score:3, Informative)
Delays more of a problem (Score:2)
The whole point of SMS messaging is that you know they'll be received and read within minutes. Very often, i receive SMS several hours late, which really defeats the whole purpose of messages such as "i'll be 10 minutes late"...
DZM
at best 3% failure rate (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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:
- SMS/subscriber/day: 10 (billed+others)
- Number of subs/SMSC: 2m
- Size of SMS: 256bytes
- Percentage lost: 3%
- Number of lost messages: 600k
- Space needed to store all lost messages until delivery: 600,000 *
.25kbytes = 150megs
So, assuming that all messages can be delivered in 24 hours, you would have to find 150megs of free space on the system to get it to work (good luck). Of course, the messages would be late and confusing, but who cares!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
Not necessarily bad.. (Score:2)
SMS billing 100% effective (Score:2)
Inter carrier SMS (Score:2)
It's much more reliable in Asia (Score:2)
The seamless interoperability of GSM standard (which almost all Asian and European countries use) is to me, one of the few examples where competition in the marketplace (like in the US cellular world) is actually counterproductive.
7.5%.. thats it?? (Score:2)
I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. I have crappy coverage with my GSM phone here (unless I'm in a major urban area I don't get signal) but the loss of SMS messages just suck ass!
Ahhhh.. to be back in europe again, if they know at least one thing, it's how to make mobile service work! Got to love riding subways with signals..
Opposite problem (Score:2)
I don't think I've ever had it completely drop a message. Sometimes there's a long delay (several hours) but that's rare; usually if I'm sitting at my desk I hear my phone beep before my mailreader has noticed that a new message has arrived.
It doesn't look like Sprint charges me extra for the duplicates, so it doesn't bother me too terribly much, though I'd prefer it if my phone would just suppress the dupes altogether rather than showing them with "Duplicate!" warnings.
good excuse for retroactive mistakes (Score:2)
Worked well in Istanbul (Score:2)
-bm
When I lived in Europe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When I lived in Europe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I am in Canada and my current provider (Fido) charges me 10 cents for each message I receive (and sent) that is pretty bad I must say.
I don't use SMS much, first of all hardly anyone here knows that AT&T and Fido offer this service and even if they rather call.
The only time I use it is to send messages to some friends back in Germany who are too lazy to use email.
You know, maybe someone just caught on. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
It's bad enough when you have to carry a pager for work; voluntarily subjecting yourself to that kind of intrusion strikes me as nuts.
In addition, dishonest marketers and at least some cell service providers are using SMS to send unwanted bulk marketing messages -- that is, they are spamming users. :/
AT&T, my cell phone service provider, is apparently one of those. After I read complaints from a number of AT&T users who had been SMS-spammed and who said that AT&T refused to stop, I demanded that AT&T disable all "services" on my cell phone account that I had not specifically authorized, including SMS. The representative tried to claim that they couldn't do that, but I insisted and he eventually gave in.
Don't assume that each new "feature" offered by your cell phone provider (or your ISP) is something you want.
Never gotten a single spam... (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:Never gotten a single spam... (Score:3, Funny)
I assume you mean on SMS. If you mean in email too, I'm moving to Norway, no matter how cold it is this time of year! ;P
Verizon won an anti-spam lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [internetnews.com]
I love Verizon Wireless.
Re:SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [bbc.co.uk] 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.
Re:SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, let's look at this :
Voicemail requires me to call me provider to get the message at $0.xx/min
Voicemail requires me to have a pen handy to write down any useful notes
Voicemail requires me to remember my callers return #
Voicemail requires me to stop a conversation so I can listen to a message
Voicemail requires me to call it back if I forget the message.
With SMS, i have the message in text, the sender's callerID is on the message, if they enter any phone #'s I can extract them with a button press, The text is always available, I can reply to the sender without making a call, and If i'm in a meeting I can read and respond to urgent messages with out being too antisocial.
I'll use SMS over Voicemail any day of the week
Re:SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:2)
I like my cell phone, it's a T68. I get SMSs and I prefer them over voice mail because I not only have it in writing to review, I don't have to actually be on the phone to read.
AT&T, my cell phone service provider, is apparently one of those. After I read complaints from a number of AT&T users who had been SMS-spammed and who said that AT&T refused to stop, I demanded that AT&T disable all "services" on my cell phone account that I had not specifically authorized, including SMS. The representative tried to claim that they couldn't do that, but I insisted and he eventually gave in.
Uhm, you can fill out a form on their website and they stop. Everyone I know doesn't have a problem with this, and I never have (I got one, then filled out the send-me-no-more-spam form, and it was gone). I got more spam going through Verizon. As for the rep, it wasn't him "giving in" it's that they have to get a service tech to break apart the features and put blocks and it's a pain in the ass.
Don't assume that each new "feature" offered by your cell phone provider (or your ISP) is something you want.
I think you missed the point of this thread. This is a thread about SMS messages that get lost. Not about paranoid folks complaining about lack of privacy over features. There are plenty other threads. Why don't you move along, and let us, who enjoy SMS converse without your troll?
Re:SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:2)
Yes, this is a growing problem that has received a lot of publicity in Europe recently. This has relevance for e-mail spam as well, it neatly illustrates that charging for each message (as is done with SMS) will not stop spam.
Think different (tm) (Score:3, Interesting)
SMS is popular because a) it works EVERYWHERE, right across the continent, across basically all carriers.
b) fixed per-message fee. pennies. Sounds like a lot? Compare it to calling someone to say "buy milk" or "meet you at 6" and it's a lot cheaper.
Remember, in the REST of the world you often don't sign contracts, or get tons of free minutes a month.. you simply pay for the calls and data you originate. Period. You do not pay for incoming.
When I was in Ireland, I saw that SMS was *extremely* popular. People bang out messages to each other all the time. Sounds goofy to you? It's quite handy.
SMS is efficent, and doesn't demand attention for little notes.
We in North America tend to view SMS more as an alphanumeric paging thingy than a real 2 way communication device... and the reason is, it only works with some of the phones we know.
In europe, if I got your cel number, I can send you a message... I don't have to wonder what carrier you are on.
Re:SMS: intrusive and an invitation to spammers (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't carry a pager. Hell, I don't even use my home line for voice (just for fax/'net). People SMS me either through free/paid gateways, ICQ or their phones.
I find SMS is incredibly convenient for sending messages to people when I don't think it's important enough to interrupt what they're doing. It's also something you can do while doing something else (you know, touch type a message in english while talking in spanish to someone - lots of fun - you should try - even better if you're driving at the same time *larf*)
Unless it's real urgent that I speak to someone, I'll text them. I send more SMS than I make calls - go figga...
So yeah, SMS is incredibly useful for lots of reasons. Still, I would imagine if you paid to receive them (what a joke) and already had pager, etc - it might not be so useful...
well one time.... (Score:2)
(humor folks, enjoy...)
not the main problem (Score:2)
*shrug* I'd not consign anything that important to SMS anyway, and it annoys me more when SMSs take five or six hours to get through, which seems to happen all the time...
SMS has always been flakey. (Score:2)
Oh really (Score:2)
I didn't even know that you could network a Sega Master System. Does it use the card slot or the cartridge port?
Good lord, is this news? (Score:4, Funny)
Newsflash! Picture phones are low-quality!
Lip off your boss (Score:2)
I use the SMS notification in PHProjekt (Score:2)
Every message that I receive... (Score:3, Funny)
oh yes. (Score:2)
Have a tried a couple of times, getting a call from a client that didn't understand that I didn't call back after he left a message on the answer machine.
The problem was that the SMS that tells me that there is a message waiting never reached my phone. It is even worse those times when I am on 24/7 standby. When I have a unanswered call, I just used to check if there was a SMS from the answering service. But since I can't rely on the SMS service I now check the answering machine everytime I have an unanswered call on the phone.
FIRST POST! (Score:4, Funny)
blahblahblahLameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like SMSing.
SMS is Monty Python humour (Score:3, Interesting)
So what do you do with this wonderful invention? Well, a system called SMS is bolted on for unreliably sending very short messages that take an age to type in. For the luxury of sending (or not; who knows?) this uselessly small piece of information, you are prepared to pay the same price as a about a minute's worth of full voice communication. That's roughly the same amount of time it took to type in your four-word question in the first place.
Oh, and everybody that sends these messages uses a basterdised version of 1337 speak, which is actually considered to be quite cool.
Man, I hate mobile phones.
Re:SMS is Monty Python humour (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, you are missing the point.
It's not about cost, SMS is a tool to bypass the conversation protocols. Instead of calling someone and spending several minutes of:
"hey."
"wassup."
"nuthin."
"what cha doing?"
"nuthing.
"you doing anything?"
"no."
"let's go to the club."
"sure."
"I'll see ya there."
"Hey, wait."
"What?"
"Ummm, nuthin, I forgot."
"Ok, see ya there."
"Ok."
You can type:
"Meet me at the club if you're free"
And there are many ways to get text in.(product_placement) The Treo has a easy to use keyboard. (/product_placement).
So there.
Re:SMS is Monty Python humour (Score:4, Insightful)
I could take it to the symphony so that receiving important messages ("Your wife is in labour" or "A kidney donor has been found" or "The server melted down and we're losing $6000 per minute and the other admin is in a coma") can get through without annoying people around me. Your phone/pager/SMS device is set to vibrate (at most) when you receive a call, right? Less important messages ("Honey, can you pick up some milk on your way home") can be safely filed for future reference. No furtive and very annoying (to those around you) conversations, no cryptic number on a little tiny pager display.
I can take it to the pub and not have to find a quiet place to hear messages. I have on more than one occasion been unable to receive an ordinary call because of ambient noise. SMS might have been very helpful.
I can always leave my phone at home if I don't want to be disturbed--I'm not dumb enough to have given my boss the number.
Re:SMS is Monty Python humour (Score:5, Insightful)
Some typical situations where I use SMS:
- on the subway: "hey, i'll be about 5 minutes late"
- replying to an SMS like the one above with "ok, no problem"
- somewhere without a TV or radio and I want to know the results from the Formula 1 race: "F1" Back comes the results, with short commentary if there were some big accident with injury or similar
- during a meeting, when my phone rang but the person didn't get through because the phone was set on silent to not disturb the meeting: "in meeting. i'll call you after it! was it something urgent?"
- in Thailand, rather than spending 5 euros per minute (or whatever) on a call: "the plane is 10 hours late. don't bother coming to the airport, i'll take a cab"
And no. They are not unreliable. Like so many other person's here have pointed out, SMS's work well enough that you don't even think about reliability issues. I personally don't remember any instance where I would have lost an SMS and over the years, I must have sent several thousands of SMS's. And you know, you actually get confirmation when you send it if it was delivered, PLUS, there's a return receipt system.
The article in this story is talking about text messaging in the *USA*. I wouldn't even be so sure it's about GSM SMS but rather the article writer might just be using "SMS" as a term for proprietary US text messaging systems.
so what? (Score:2)
Thats exactly how i like it (Score:2)
but im glad that there is a failure rate.
I dont use SMS messages, i dont quite see the point.
my phone supports AIM, if i need to, i just use that.
additionally, SMS will become the next hottest spam source.
Last nite, i finally got another cell phone, through verizon...
the phone hadnt been activated for 2 hours, and i received some mail that had been sent from hotmail, advertising a party...
2 hours!
yea, its a cool little feature, but i dont see how it can be anything trully beneficial, just another gee-wiz thing.
esp when im about to start getting charged for all the spam that comes in to the phone.
No problems in New Zealand (Score:5, Interesting)
Telecom NZ uses CDMA an D-AMPS and I haven't heard of any losses on that side at all.
Why not just call? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Why not just call? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not just call? (Score:4, Insightful)
What if you remember something you want to tell someone at 2am, I'm not going to call them and wake them jsut to say "Don't forget the CD in the morning" when I can just SMS it they'll get it when they feel like. Sure I could call them in the morning (as long as I remember then, or write it down to remind me) but then I can also jsut SMS it and be done. SMS does not demand instant attention like a phone (God I hate stopping things just to answer the phone) and it also doesn't require instant responses if you want to think about something.
You might have virtually free calls where you are, but here it's pretty much the same to call someone for 30secodns as it is to just SMS them. Call when you want a longer chat sure, but just SMS them if you want something trivial.
As for the whole hunt and peck entry, I've got a pretty small Nokia (8850) but with predictive text and nimble fingers I have no problems typing out a 120 character message in 30 seconds. If you have fat fingers or lower dexterity then try a different phone, or get one of those keyboards that Ericssons have or just don't use SMS.
On a side note I've not specifically noticed any missing messages (although that could be like the Australian porn legislation, how would I know if I'm missing something?) although I do get the occasional "Messaged Undelivered" back when it's either busy or I'm crossing the bridge on the train. That's another point, you can SMS on a train and not be one of those arseholes who yell into the phone at peak hour! If I get a call on the train then I hang it up, nothing can be so critical that they can't wait for 10 minutes or leave me a voice mail so that I can get back to them later.
I can explain... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need to get a quick message out to someone or someone wants to get one out to you but doesn't want to disturb you or the others around you because they don't know if you are in a place like those mentioned above, then SMS/email is your friend (as common courtesy is a GOOD thing). Here in Japan, it is considered impolite to use your phone on the trains. Sure some people do, but it is not common at all. People tend to look out for each other.
And another thing. Everytime there is a story about a movie on Slashdot, there are a lot of posts about people who hate going to movies because of "some jerk with a cel-phone". Well, in Japan, EVERYONE has a mobile phone, and not once have I so much as even heard a phone go off in a movie theatre. Why? Common courtesy. We know how to use the Manner Mode on our phones here, and we know that it is incredibly rude to ruin someone else's movie experience.
But, if something is urgent, or the person who is trying communicate with you has no clue where you might be so doesn't know if it is OK to talk or not, SMS/email allows us to maintain common courtesy and communicate in such situations.
That is why we "willingly squint at a tiny screen, and peck at a tiny keyboard to type out some message, reminiscent of the days of the telegraph, instead of just dialing the same damn phone and, god forbid, actually *speak* to someone".
I hope I was able to successfully answer your question.
What about voicemails? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know what they are talking about... (Score:2)
Good SIte to Read (Score:2)
AT&T and Nextel (Score:2, Interesting)
How about delayed? (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
So SMS in the USA is broken then. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
Predictable? (Score:5, Funny)
Mobitel.si vs. Cingular (Score:5, Informative)
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
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).
Me, too! (Score:3, Funny)
Yes! I didn't receive these messages, either.
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.
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
Re:status request (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IN THE USA (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in Finland, and I have yet to see a lost SMS, even during peak periods, such as new years or christmas. Sure, the messages may arrive 2-3h late, but they do arrive.
I might add that, despite being a small country, the cell-phone/SMS usage rate is remarkably high, especially in the major cities.
Re:IN THE USA (Score:3, Funny)
Of course you have yet to see a lost SMS. If you actually saw it, then it wouldn't be lost!
Sorry, couldn't resist the lame joke...
Re:IN THE USA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You Expected Better? (Score:2)