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Do Texts take longer to get to other Providers?
- Thread starter michael31986
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If by a few more seconds you mean a few more seconds, then maybe.... How impatient can someone be?
well im just testing with friends, but its hard to tell since half hour ago i was having like 20 min lag with texts lol.
i guess it would take longer with other providors, but i wont know lol
i guess it would take longer with other providors, but i wont know lol
AT&T seems to have network issues all around with regards to texting. Now I haven't used another provider so I can't compare, but AT&T has texting delays, sometimes texts get lost, sometimes they get sent twice etc. I've noticed these problems a bit more frequently with the iPhone (especially delays and lost texts), I'm not sure why that is. 
You would be right, it does take longer for SMS messages to travel across two carrier networks than it would to transport a message in-network.
The simple reason for this is, well, it's a different carrier. Unlike voice phone calls, where everything is pretty well standardized at the cross-network level, there's some translation and specialized routing that has to take place for an SMS message to cross a network boundary, at least in the US.
Further complicating matters is that while AT&T and T-Mobile mostly adhere to the same SMS stadards built in to GSM (and thus used by most everyone else in the world), the other two large carriers - Verizon and Sprint - use different networks running on different standards, and their SMS systems do not conform. Verizon is close, but Sprint is completely oddball in the system they've put together for their CDMA network, and doesn't even conform entirely to CDMA-established standards. And Nextel? Forget about it, it's a mess.
Because there are these differences, US carriers have to have technical and financial arrangements in place to allow intercarrier messaging. Some networks individually work it out with the other carriers, while others completely farm out the whole mess to a third party, like VeriSign, and leave any out-of-network message in that third parties' hands to deal with. Along the way, the message has to be reformatted to fit the needs of the destination network, and checks have to be made to be sure that the number hasn't been ported out to a totally different network. This verification isn't always up to date either, which is why just-ported numbers can have problems receiving text messages for as along as a day or two.
The problem with this arrangement is pretty obvious: when messages don't get to where they need to go, it's hard to pinpoint who's to blame. It could be breakdown on AT&T's end, or it could be on the receiving end. It could that a lookup table for ported numbers wasn't updated on time. Or it could be the third party gateway having trouble. And obviously, no one wants to take the blame and will point fingers at the others.
Once you get into the deep details of what goes on, you'd actually be very surprised that any messages make it at all. But somehow, it all works... most of the time.
The simple reason for this is, well, it's a different carrier. Unlike voice phone calls, where everything is pretty well standardized at the cross-network level, there's some translation and specialized routing that has to take place for an SMS message to cross a network boundary, at least in the US.
Further complicating matters is that while AT&T and T-Mobile mostly adhere to the same SMS stadards built in to GSM (and thus used by most everyone else in the world), the other two large carriers - Verizon and Sprint - use different networks running on different standards, and their SMS systems do not conform. Verizon is close, but Sprint is completely oddball in the system they've put together for their CDMA network, and doesn't even conform entirely to CDMA-established standards. And Nextel? Forget about it, it's a mess.
Because there are these differences, US carriers have to have technical and financial arrangements in place to allow intercarrier messaging. Some networks individually work it out with the other carriers, while others completely farm out the whole mess to a third party, like VeriSign, and leave any out-of-network message in that third parties' hands to deal with. Along the way, the message has to be reformatted to fit the needs of the destination network, and checks have to be made to be sure that the number hasn't been ported out to a totally different network. This verification isn't always up to date either, which is why just-ported numbers can have problems receiving text messages for as along as a day or two.
The problem with this arrangement is pretty obvious: when messages don't get to where they need to go, it's hard to pinpoint who's to blame. It could be breakdown on AT&T's end, or it could be on the receiving end. It could that a lookup table for ported numbers wasn't updated on time. Or it could be the third party gateway having trouble. And obviously, no one wants to take the blame and will point fingers at the others.
Once you get into the deep details of what goes on, you'd actually be very surprised that any messages make it at all. But somehow, it all works... most of the time.
^ ooh i gotcha. so anyone that isn't at&t would take a bit longer even tmobile even though we are both gsm
Yup, even T-Mobile.
20 minutes is REALLY pushing it though, and I'd complain if messages were taking that long.
20 minutes is REALLY pushing it though, and I'd complain if messages were taking that long.
it was just lagging for an hour no big deal it was just the network. all networks have problems sometimes. even verizon at times has problems and doesn't send texts.