You need a new provider...not all cell phone companies are created equal...

Then call Verizon, seriously!

To both of you: We have both used Verizon - not exactly one of the minor companies in the telecommunications industry. I changed to Net10 a few years back. No difference in the results - still seconds or days response time.

Serious answers please!

So you don't think the telecommunications industry has changed in the last "few years"?

http://www.customerservicescoreboard.com/Net10

After doing a little research it seems there is no tower in your area...So if you only have intermittent connection and weak at best, then that could be the problem...The only way I know of to over come the problem is to set up a wireless connection at your house...This is easy enough to do if you have an internet connection, and then enable your phone to connect through that....You do need a phone with that ability....I use an iphone and it works great...

http://www.cellreception.com/coverage/fl/bradenton/page1.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24633-43-connect-internet-wifi-mobile-phone

That's not true - there is a tower at Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island only 2 miles south of me, BUT it's a short one, due to a city ordnance on height restrictions for all buildings. This does result in poor signal strength and is always being discussed in the local paper here.

However, all this is irrelevant since we had the same phenomena in San Marcos, CA, Lewisburg, TN and Vero Beach, FL - where signal strength was not a issue. Friends in Tennesse using AT&T complained of the same problem. Europium has clearly experienced the same problem. So there's more to it than just signal strength.

Nope! My father had passed away on a Sunday night and i did not get the message until Tuesday afternoon. Verizon is not the answer.

I have Verizon...it does this to me all of the time. I think they are trying to make me upgrade to a smart phone. They are really pushing the 3G and 4G networks. I think they are neglecting the older networks and moving resources to the newer stuff.

this is only a thought. could these companies be over-loaded with data that needs to be sent? could text mail be a low priority?

I thought text uses an unused section of a regular phone call... What a 160 character. The was Originally design for another use, when you made a regular phone call, this 160 character is included with you call, though unused. It was just probably a marketing realized they could utilize this and actually charge for it.

I had Verizon for over 15 years, before it was Verizon, at first, I thought it was pretty good, probably the best, until about 6-7 years ago, the service got pretty crappy. And the 'Can you hear me now was BS'. But it has improved lately, .....$$$

Verizon's great. They don't even bother requiring a court order before agreeing to hand over your call records, text messages, Internet history to the No Such Ag*ncy upon request. Them and AT&T don't even put up a fight. Buggers might as well publish your communications online, publicly for all to see. It's not that I've got any secrets to hide, but there is a difference between secrecy and privacy.

Both them are arrogant bastards. There was one area were I was getting dropped calls. So I called 'V'. They told me I was wrong, their record shows no calls were dropped. As I was talking to them, my call was dropped. After 3 calls later they came with the excuse, that they don't have service in that area, and had no control. I then asked how could they then tell me that my calls were not dropped. Who's bulls#iting.

They're shameless. It suddenly occurred to me as I was reading your post of making a hypothetical flowchart that these so-called 'Customer (Dis)Service' reps follow. I don't have Visio on my machine here, but it might go something like this:

Customer submits complaint

[oh that doesn't happen]

Customer offers proof it does happen

[oh then it was something else (thus substantiating that it does happen)]

Customer is on the phone. Obviously that something else can't be true either

[oh then it was this other thing, etc. etc.]

"Have you considered upgrading to our new Premium Service? You know, where we offer service in your area at exhorbitant rates?"

The only reason they get away with this crap is that they're got us over a barrel. A CDMA barrel. The U.S. and some island country are the only ones who use it exclusively. Everybody else uses GSM. My friends offshore assure me that what I pay per month for mobile service here in the States would pay for their Internet AND (GSM) mobile service for an entire year. We're getting gouged to death here but we're used to it, there are few alternatives, we just assume it's like this everywhere and so nobody complains.

I went to school with a fellow that was a customer service for sprint I believe. He spent 6 weeks of training, none by the way had anything to do with customer service, only selling product. Pissed me off, because, I upgraded my service because the customer service said that would help my service. He was actually left go, because he really wanted to help the customers. They have you on a time limit.

Of course they let him go; he was putting a microscopic dent in their Bottom Line. I mean, when you're raking in billions in profits, those few extra dollars spent on good customer service really hurt and the shareholders will fire your arse if you keep it up. That's why their Customer Service sucks: all the good coffee has gone through the filter, leaving the dregs behind.

Are we at all surprised?

When bait and switch becomes the norm..................we're basically screwed.

Customer service has nothing to do with customer or service

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p85xwZ_OLX0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

LOL! Yup, like reporting a UFO! "It's just Swamp Gas"

I'm talking about voice mail.

To your mobile service it's all just data. Doesn't matter whether it's text, pix or anything else because, to them, it is just a bit-stream that they store and forward.

Given that capacious mass-storage is dirt cheap, I rather doubt this is a problem. The fact that you can make a call and not get a 'System is busy' message most of the time says that open channels are available. It's being held up for other reasons which certainly have to be some sort of internal problem.

Maybe Big Brother forgot to flag them for release, ya?

I have had this problem with several different mobile providers and, you're right, it's a mystery. It doesn't seem to matter which provider I've used. T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

The worst delay I experienced was with T-Mobile. I received a batch of messages in September which were sent in March.

They're obviously being stored somewhere. Long-term.

You may have the same problem, no tower close by....You can remedy the situation the same way...If your messages are unable to download in a specific time they get kicked into storage, then tried to deliver ever so often....If you happen to be in a good connection area when that attempt is made then delivery completes...

In some countries, the delivery time for cellphone text messages depends on the weather. An example is Jakarta, Indonesia. The landline copper system is archaic and when it rains the landlines commonly get flooded and stop working.

Therefore everybody with a defunct landline suddenly uses the cellphone system during the wet, stretching it over maximum capacity. Text messages are lowest priority and may take a couple of days in the wet, due to the voice call overload.

Mark Bingham
Relativity PL

We recently had some torrential rain in relatively dry Eastern Washington State and it took out the phone lines for a couple of days. But the DSL internet service didn't seem to be affected. Of course I used my cell phone to leave a couple short voicemails. More often than not we have been using emails for our messaging service.

#16

Try to do MNP. Usually cellphone service provider won't let a message to be in their server after 12:00am of that day. Increase in internet usage over mobile service might have decreased bandwidth.

I tend to assume that no one has my back, but me.

Not real big on cellphones either.

My advice: Look out for yourself and your friends, love yourself, forgive yourself, live life to the fullest.......................................................in the end, outside contact won't matter.

Hilarious! The "Two Ronnies" (minus 1) ride again.

lololololololol

Screw it, this one's definitely OT!

We have both Frontier and AT&T here. A lot of dropped calls, and delayed texting and messages.

I always felt that the problem was their servers being overloaded or their entire cell system being overloaded at peak traffic times...

Have you considered a land line? And how about a microcassette answering machine?

Signal Flags?

Morse Code?

Drums?

Smoke Signals?

I think it's the NSA and they are back-logged looking for who knows what!

Can you still send a telgram?

like the hare it takes a nap gets up walk a distance then a nap again and finally knocks on your door(cell) ding! ding!

"I've just run the car into a deep ditch and the doors are jammed."Then simply take a nap befotre somebody discovers you and if you can get out then walk hope it will be faster than the message.

Wow - thanks for that information - I'll treasure it!

It's simple!
1. They have a good service, so they fish for more cusomers as 'hey we have this unused capacity'.
2. They get too many customers, the service then becomes bad, so they upgrade the infrastructure.
goto 1.

Same with internet speed etc.
Add in the fact that anyone you talk to from the company will not have the slightest idea about how the system or infrastructure functions.
If you phone 'em up and moan threatening to go to another provider about 10 mins later you get a text giving you £30 of free airtime. (Well that's what happened to Mrs Cat who has been complaining about the problem*).
Del
* As for me? You could vapourise all the mobile phones in an instant and I wouldn't giveadamn.

In this country, if you threaten to leave it used to be that they'll tried to retain you as a customer, but today, it's at a point of go where. The service is the same, and they know it.

It's mice! Mice have invaded the cellular system. Go get 'em cattus Dellus!

I think they want you to use call service which is more remunerative than SMS.

The speed of mail delivery normally will depend on how robust the mail servers being used, (how big and how fast), the routings or internet traffic, and the volume of mails being handled or processed at those particular moments. Mails containing a lot of graphics also tend to affect the upload as well as download speeds.

#16

It helps to read through the thread before dispensing uninformed opinions and adding to the confusion, as per the UL statement you made in another thread.

I believe my comment to this subject about message delay is correct and applicable to both emails and voice mails. this so since most of the communications are now done thru internet or VOIP technology provided by big providers such as ATT and Verizon..

OK,

Never mind. You're probably right. I shouldn't be in this discussion anyway.

I've never, ever had a problem with slow service here in the Arizona desert.

When I'm in SW Minnesota, I sometimes have a problem because there is no tower anywhere on the plains around me for miles. I have to go upstairs and stand by a certain window to get any service. It's nice to get away sometimes.

All of the above. In the Navy we used foot messengers and sound powered phones.

I live 10 miles from Indy. Sprint told me that my problem was if every thing was perfect coverage was 70%. When I informed them that when we signed the two year contract nothing like this was explained to us, and why were we paying 100% if "perfect service could only be 70%" My call was dropped. Calling back yielded nothing and I was told a supervisor would call me back. That was 93 days ago.

It is my opinion that as long as we continue to pay for crappy service, crappy service is all we shall get. My wife and I will never sign a 24 month contract with sprint again.

Replying to the original thread... although that may be pointless given all the distractions and side bar conversations in this thread.

A few of the posts have come through that have a bit of the truth, but not all.

It does depend on your carrier as each one will use different platforms depending on the network technology used (CDMA vs. GSM). In all cases, though, some similar things occur.

First, your phone has to be on or in coverage to receive the message. It seems sort of obvious, but it is true. Just like an incoming phone call, if the receiver isn't on, the call won't be completed or, in this case, the message will not be delivered. What follows depends on the carrier.

All of the carriers have a retry logic built in to their message delivery platforms to compensate for phones being off or out of coverage temporarily. Every time it tries, the time between attempts grows longer. So, you'll have several attempts in the first few seconds, then every few seconds, every few minutes, every few hour, then one a day. Usually, there is a 72 hour limit. Eventually, the system will stop trying and discard the message. The limit is imposed to keep undeliverable messages from clogging the system. For instance, a customer has cancelled service. The limit keeps the system from trying to deliver the message forever, or from delivering it to a new user who has just gotten the recycled phone number.

The message (an SMS message) is an extension of the way that the network instructs the phone to do certain things. When you get an incoming call or have a voice mail, the network sends an SMS message top the phone telling it to do something: display an icon, ring, or whatever. This service was expanded to allow the 160 character SMS message as a service for customers.

Thanks for your detailed response.

"All of the carriers have a retry logic built in to their message delivery platforms to compensate for phones being off or out of coverage temporarily. Every time it tries, the time between attempts grows longer. So, you'll have several attempts in the first few seconds, then every few seconds, every few minutes, every few hours, then once a day. Usually, there is a 72 hour limit."

That makes a lot of sense. If this principle is true (and I don't doubt you), then my/our service must jump from trying every few minutes to once a day, without any intervening intervals. I say this because my service is never "zero signal" for long. I can be making and receiving calls one day, yet a message can still arrive 2 days later, that was left 3 days prior.

Yep, that could be the case. I can't speak for all the carriers and am not even absolutely certain what the intervals are on my service. The issue is whether or not the message can get through. If anything blocks it, or prevents the handset from receiving it, you go into the retry loop. Network capacity can be a factor here, too, as several folks have mentioned. SMS messages go down the paging channel, a logical channel. If the paging channel is full, then SMS messages can get left out. Since the paging channel is also how the network notifies devices of incoming traffic, it is possible that in congested networks some SMS messages are delayed.

One interesting aspect of this is voice mail. If a message is left for you on your cellular service, the message is not on the handset but on the network and you have to retrieve it. What the network does is send an SMS message to the handset to turn on the voice mail indicator/icon on the device. If the SMS message doesn't go through, you are unaware that a message has been left for you, but the message is present none the less. If you were to check VM, you'd get the message, even though there is no indicator on your handset that you have one.

Don't try to send a message when kids are just arriving at, or leaving, School for the day. Same goes for break times. If there's a major disaster (earthquake etc), don't even waste your time on any type of cell-phone call.

Some errors (defects)will be there in everything. Man never becomes perfect. If so, he will rule the planet. So nature will never allow it.

If the situation is serious, call instead of message..