Sprint Text Messaging/SMS delayed or not received

Sprint's SMS, Text Messaging is unreliable. Since I've been with them,
about 7 years, and they've rolled out shortmail and MO SMS - I have had
consistent problems sending and receiving texts. They've been delayed
or not sent/received at various times and I've narrowed the problem to
Sprint's infrastructure.

No, it is not the I500SMS application. I've had success in sending and
receiving in the past and it is currently working. The issue is that
Sprint's philisophy for text messaging is an ancillary service. My
company has TAP connections to Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile. If I use
that connection to send a message to each provider, all of the
employees who use those providers consistently receive their messages
except Sprint. Many of those employees use their phones as pagers, yet
I am saddled with two devices.
I have checked with our communications department and they have
confirmed that Cingular has implemented failover servers for their text
messaging.
I have checked with Sprint and they arbitrarily take their text
messaging servers offline for maintenance without providing failover.
I have no information on T-Mobile's text messaging infrastructure.

Given the above, I am seriously considering jumping ship at contract
end to Cingular and the Treo.
-The additional wart of not knowing who the text is from adds fuel to
the fire..
- Rollover minutes are also attractive.

Sorry guys, but form factor alone doesn't make up for functionality
that (in my opinion) has gone from nice to have - to need to have.

Opinions welcome.

Best Regards,

FiBi

On 10 Oct 2005 07:09:09 -0700, iabenson@gmail.com wrote:

>Sprint's SMS, Text Messaging is unreliable.
[...]
>Opinions welcome.

I agree, and I see the same things that you have mentioned. Sprint's
SMS has really gone down the drain within the last 2 years, as far as
timely delivery of some messages.

This past spring, I looked into this issue with one of the messaging
services I subscribe to, tvweather.com. I would get weather warning
SMS messages for my secondary (Johnson) county (sometimes), and none
for my primary (Tarrant) county. Tarrant county has a large
population, Johnson county doesn't. Tvweather.com was well aware of
this problem with Sprint. Tvweather verified that the messages were
getting to Sprint and being rejected. This issue started about 2
years ago. For 3 years prior to that, the weather messages would get
to my phone in a very timely manner, sometimes even before the NWS got
them out on NOAA weather radio.

Tvweather *speculated* that (no way to prove it, of course):
1) Sprint has some algorithm to identify spam, and it was
misidentifying some messages from tvweather.com (i.e. a large batch
for a certain geographic region) as spam, and rejecting them.
2) Sprint's SMS system can't deal with a glut of incoming messages,
such as would happen when severe weather SMS messages are sent out out
to a large metropolitan area.

Sprint CS, as usual, was completely unhelpful and denied any issues
with their SMS when I contacted them, as as well as when tvweather.com
was trying to work with them.

Last fall and winter, I used to get FB and BB scores from
www.collegesports.com right on time. This fall, the football scores
are coming in 6-7 days late. Again, the sender has verified that the
messages are getting to Sprint, but getting rejected.

I seem to get single messages from individuals quickly, but messages
from these services are messed up.

Joe Huber
huber.joseph@comcast.net

I guess you learn to live with it. Most times it takes a long time for mine
to come to my phone.


On 10/10/05 10:09 AM, in article
1128953349.105331.58480@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om, "iabenson@gmail.com"
<iabenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sprint's SMS, Text Messaging is unreliable. Since I've been with them,
> about 7 years, and they've rolled out shortmail and MO SMS - I have had
> consistent problems sending and receiving texts. They've been delayed
> or not sent/received at various times and I've narrowed the problem to
> Sprint's infrastructure.
>
> No, it is not the I500SMS application. I've had success in sending and
> receiving in the past and it is currently working. The issue is that
> Sprint's philisophy for text messaging is an ancillary service. My
> company has TAP connections to Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile. If I use
> that connection to send a message to each provider, all of the
> employees who use those providers consistently receive their messages
> except Sprint. Many of those employees use their phones as pagers, yet
> I am saddled with two devices.
> I have checked with our communications department and they have
> confirmed that Cingular has implemented failover servers for their text
> messaging.
> I have checked with Sprint and they arbitrarily take their text
> messaging servers offline for maintenance without providing failover.
> I have no information on T-Mobile's text messaging infrastructure.
>
> Given the above, I am seriously considering jumping ship at contract
> end to Cingular and the Treo.
> -The additional wart of not knowing who the text is from adds fuel to
> the fire..
> - Rollover minutes are also attractive.
>
> Sorry guys, but form factor alone doesn't make up for functionality
> that (in my opinion) has gone from nice to have - to need to have.
>
> Opinions welcome.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> FiBi
>

I've never had a problem with my text messages.


<iabenson@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128953349.105331.58480@f14g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...
> Sprint's SMS, Text Messaging is unreliable. Since I've been with them,
> about 7 years, and they've rolled out shortmail and MO SMS - I have had
> consistent problems sending and receiving texts. They've been delayed
> or not sent/received at various times and I've narrowed the problem to
> Sprint's infrastructure.
>
> No, it is not the I500SMS application. I've had success in sending and
> receiving in the past and it is currently working. The issue is that
> Sprint's philisophy for text messaging is an ancillary service. My
> company has TAP connections to Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile. If I use
> that connection to send a message to each provider, all of the
> employees who use those providers consistently receive their messages
> except Sprint. Many of those employees use their phones as pagers, yet
> I am saddled with two devices.
> I have checked with our communications department and they have
> confirmed that Cingular has implemented failover servers for their text
> messaging.
> I have checked with Sprint and they arbitrarily take their text
> messaging servers offline for maintenance without providing failover.
> I have no information on T-Mobile's text messaging infrastructure.
>
> Given the above, I am seriously considering jumping ship at contract
> end to Cingular and the Treo.
> -The additional wart of not knowing who the text is from adds fuel to
> the fire..
> - Rollover minutes are also attractive.
>
> Sorry guys, but form factor alone doesn't make up for functionality
> that (in my opinion) has gone from nice to have - to need to have.
>
> Opinions welcome.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> FiBi
>