4 ms·

Unreliable in the sense, that it is on the discretion of the network, whether it will drop your message somewhere in transit, without letting you know. Just lik

Unreliable in the sense, that it is on the discretion of the network, whether it will drop your message somewhere in transit, without letting you know. Just like UDP.

blibble 9y ago
SMS supports delivery notifications, I think I've been using them for almost, if not 20 years I get a little display under the message saying 'delivered' in the standard android SMS app
- vetinari 9y ago
  That's another message that may or may not be lost, if it is checked at all. I've got my lesson about SMS reliability few years ago: I've bought a bus ticket via SMS, it was never delivered, but I got charged for it and the operator claimed that it was sent, when disputed. Except I've never received it, and couldn't ride the bus without it.
  - blibble 9y ago
    > That's another message that may or may not be lost, if it is checked at all. that's a general problem with acknowledgements and is not specific to SMS TCP is exactly the same
    - hueving 9y ago
      But tcp detects this and recovers or explicitly kills the connection.
- cbhl 9y ago
  Sometimes carriers will send a "delivered" even though it only made it as far as a cell tower (and not an actual phone)
simias 9y ago
Is it a practical issue where you are? In France I can't remember the last time I've had issues with undelivered text messages and I use them quite a lot (I generally use the cheapest plan I can find which usually doesn't contain data, so I default to texts). For important messages I'll expect an explicit confirmation anyway, it's not enough that the message reaches the recipient's phone, they also have to read it! My main problem with texts is lack of privacy which is why I'm slowly pivoting towards Signal instead.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  If you've had a long running group chat over MMS, ask to see everyone else's phones. Messages will be in a different order on every phone and there will be many missing messages. My wife and I do this regularly because we won't understand something said and we'll see one of us didn't get a message from the group.
  - wink 9y ago
    It's 2018 and I learn that there's MMS group chat o_O -- a guy who used SMS and then had 90% of friends being reachable via IRC and email, and SMS for the rest - before entering the world of smartphones.

Unreliable in the sense, that it is on the discretion of the network, whether it will drop your message somewhere in transit, without letting you know. Just like UDP.

blibble 9y ago

SMS supports delivery notifications, I think I've been using them for almost, if not 20 years I get a little display under the message saying 'delivered' in the standard android SMS app

vetinari 9y ago
That's another message that may or may not be lost, if it is checked at all. I've got my lesson about SMS reliability few years ago: I've bought a bus ticket via SMS, it was never delivered, but I got charged for it and the operator claimed that it was sent, when disputed. Except I've never received it, and couldn't ride the bus without it.
- blibble 9y ago
  > That's another message that may or may not be lost, if it is checked at all. that's a general problem with acknowledgements and is not specific to SMS TCP is exactly the same
  - hueving 9y ago
    But tcp detects this and recovers or explicitly kills the connection.
cbhl 9y ago
Sometimes carriers will send a "delivered" even though it only made it as far as a cell tower (and not an actual phone)

simias 9y ago

Is it a practical issue where you are? In France I can't remember the last time I've had issues with undelivered text messages and I use them quite a lot (I generally use the cheapest plan I can find which usually doesn't contain data, so I default to texts). For important messages I'll expect an explicit confirmation anyway, it's not enough that the message reaches the recipient's phone, they also have to read it! My main problem with texts is lack of privacy which is why I'm slowly pivoting towards Signal instead.

cptskippy 9y ago
If you've had a long running group chat over MMS, ask to see everyone else's phones. Messages will be in a different order on every phone and there will be many missing messages. My wife and I do this regularly because we won't understand something said and we'll see one of us didn't get a message from the group.
- wink 9y ago
  It's 2018 and I learn that there's MMS group chat o_O -- a guy who used SMS and then had 90% of friends being reachable via IRC and email, and SMS for the rest - before entering the world of smartphones.