Connected by wifi calling, can only receive SMS from some people

ProDave

Here is a technical puzzle that hopefully someone can solve.

If you have read my other posts you will gather we have lost our real mobile signal at home so are totally reliant now on wifi calling for our phones to work at home.  We thought they were working properly.

Today SWMBO tried to log onto a service that needed to send her a verification code by SMS. It did not arrive.  Later she drive into town and the queued messages were collected.

Back home as we were discussing it a message came in via SMS.  That's strange, it works, so why did she not get the earlier ones.  Then I sent her an SMS it did not arrive, daughter sent one, it did.

So can anyone care to speculate why when connected via wifi calling, she can only receive SMS messages from some senders, the others she only receives when connected to a real mobile phone signal?

k_man

I will speculate that SMS over WiFi isn't working via your new network (1p?).
But some messages are being received, because they use data based SMS messaging (known as RCS on Android, iPhone does something similar)

The latter work like SMS, but both sender and recipient need working data connection (and have RCS enabled). This is not related to your mobile network provider.

If the sender is sending via traditional SMS, you won't receive it if you don't have mobile signal, unless your mobile provider supports SMS over Wifi, and it works.

What device is having the problem?

ProDave

It is my wife;s Samsung Galaxy A12 she is with O2 directly.

I have said before, why does it have to be so complicated?  I can send an SMS from my 1P phone o her O2 phone but she cannot send an SMS to me.

If we turn off wifi nether of us get a signal at home so can't send or receive anything.

Is RCS something you can turn on or off? I have not heard of that setting before.

d123

1p wificalling supports sms, (it's on EE and they have had full calls and sms support since launch years ago).

I'd be asking 1p Mobile to investigate, give them some example numbers that can and can't send.

ProDave

Sory it is my wife's phone on O2 that is not receiving some SMS messages when connected via wifi calling.  Is that a known problem?

PHK

You just need to go into messages settings and make sure that Chat features are turned on. Then you’ll be able to send messages by RCS to your wife (or any one else that has RCS turned on) but not via SMS as it looks like your provider doesn’t support SMS by WiFi   (Or it’s not working)

k_man

ProDave said:

Sory it is my wife's phone on O2 that is not receiving some SMS messages when connected via wifi calling.  Is that a known problem?

Looks like SMS over WiFi needs to be enabled by O2 by specific model, the A12 may not yet be supported.
Check with O2?

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/SMS-over-Wifi-Calling/td-p/1526303

Why can’t all current Wifi Calling handsets support SMS over Wifi Calling?

Each device that supports Wifi Calling today will need to receive a software update in order for SMS over Wifi Calling to work. There are some handsets we support today that are now too old to receive software updates and therefor will not become compatible with SMS over Wifi Calling. Newer devices will receive updates, but it will take time for the manufacturers to develop and release the software, for which we have no further details or ETA – but we’ll continue to work closely with manufacturers to help implement this.


As suggested previously RCS based SMS will work for some messages, but not all. I wouldn't expect validation/OTP SMS to use RCS

ProDave

That was 10 years ago. You would have thought it would have been rolled out to all phones by now?  Her phone is no more than 2 years old.  I will suggest she contacts O2 for help, otherwise I feel another move to 1P mobile coming up,

k_man

ProDave said:

That was 10 years ago. You would have thought it would have been rolled out to all phones by now?  Her phone is no more than 2 years old.  I will suggest she contacts O2 for help, otherwise I feel another move to 1P mobile coming up,

The linked page was posted (only) a year ago?

Be worth testing receiving SMS on your SIM in your wife's phone before switching, just in case.

ProDave

k_man said:

ProDave said:

Sory it is my wife's phone on O2 that is not receiving some SMS messages when connected via wifi calling.  Is that a known problem?

As suggested previously RCS based SMS will work for some messages, but not all. I wouldn't expect validation/OTP SMS to use RCS

Are you saying these sorts of SMS will never work over wifi calling and will need a proper mobile signal to receive them?

flaneurs_lobster

Just when you thought you'd got this wi-fi calling malarky sorted, along comes another wrinkle just to remind you that this stuff is complicated.

You will struggle to find anyone who can explain why this particular model of phone on this particular network tariff works while this one doesn't.