Mobile Phone Query

lemontree

Please can anyone explain why, when I text my Son, who lives 30 miles away it takes either seconds or several hours to reach him.
Thank you.

calvin951

on festival / busy time or normal time?

lemontree

Sometimes for example 10am or 10pm but it does not seem to be certain times.He ives in the Rossendale Valley which is surrounded by hills.
Would that mahe a difference?

lemontree

What does on festival mean?

calvin951

lemontree wrote: »

What does on festival mean?

some time people send text to wish others so there is a chance of getting delay due to more text.

loudcox

Most likely there's either a problem at your end sending the message, or a problem at his end receiving!

If like me he lives in an area of very weak signal, it's very possible he'll keep losing signal for extended periods of time - I generally can't get a signal downstairs, so if I leave my phone there, I obviously fail to get texts until I realise and move it. If other people also report that texts sometimes take hours to be delivered to him then it suggests the problem's at his end.

The other option is of course that you're sending from a poor-coverage area and didn't realise there was no signal. Are the delayed texts all sent from one location? If so, then is the signal in that area dodgy? If you think the message has sent, check the unsent and items folders in your text messages to confirm if it was indeed sent.

Several years ago I read something along the following lines from Nokia or Orange about SMS sending: If the message at first fails to send or deliver then:

Try to send / deliver
...once every 6s for the first minute
...once every minute for six minutes
...once every six minutes for an hour
...once every hour for six hours

This may of course now be completely wrong - it was almost ten years ago now!

Other options include the capacity of the network being temporarily overloaded (hardly likely to stop texts for hours), or a problem at the mobile cell tower to which you or the other party are connected.

A quick google for "rossendale valley mobile signal" shows a few pages discussing problems with it.

Hammyman

When you send a message it isn't transmitted directly from phone to phone but instead goes through your phone network and its messaging system then to the other mobile operators if he's on a different network before being sent to the transmitter of the cell site he's in and then his phone.