Messages gone if iPhone left off for too long?

[Castiel]

I have an iPhone 4 on AT&T, dropped it and sent it in for repair. I didn't send the SIM with the phone though. Given shipping times and the repairs it's been a little over a month and I now have the phone back. I was hoping upon putting the SIM back in all text messages/voicemails while I had it off would come through but only 1 did from 2 days ago.

Just curious if it's possible to get them to still come through? Or do they just go MIA and gone forever after a certain amount of time?

 

[NintendoToad]

They will come through, for the same reason that all of your texts/messages come through if your phone has been off.

 

[Castiel]

Well I've had the phone on all day and nothing has came through.

 

[NintendoToad]

They should've. Did you put the SIM in another phone? When I put mine back in, it took a good couple hours, but they came through. Can you move somewhere to get better reception? (That is so freaking weird.) Do you know you got (many) messages?

I'm not 100% too sure of a time limit, but I would think/hope it's a bucketload better than 2 days. I know I was able to get 3 month retention, but that was 2 months ago, so...

 

[Castiel]

No, I didn't put the SIM in any other phone. I had quite a few people that I ran into do the whole "I texted you" bit, so I know I have a number of messages that didn't come through.
But you're right, 2 days does seem like quite the small time-limit window.

 

[thewitt]

SMS is not a guaranteed delivery service, so the duration your provider holds undelivered messages is determined by them.

-t