It has no error detection or correction. It’s best-effort. There’s not even validation between handset and tower. The phone encapsulates the message in the frames and sends them, assuming they arrive at the tower.
It’s like shouting into a room and assuming the person got your message.
If connectivity is spotty, then SMS is spotty - and you have no idea if the other person didn’t receive your message.
It’s not really like that anymore on the newer networks… Back 15 years ago, sure you’d miss texts or get them 4 days late, but I can’t recall the last time a text went AWOL
Huh, even when you enable “SMS delivery reports”? If someone’s phone is off and I SMS them, I get one checkmark, and once they’re online again it gets two.
The problem is that SMS isn’t reliable.
It has no error detection or correction. It’s best-effort. There’s not even validation between handset and tower. The phone encapsulates the message in the frames and sends them, assuming they arrive at the tower.
It’s like shouting into a room and assuming the person got your message.
If connectivity is spotty, then SMS is spotty - and you have no idea if the other person didn’t receive your message.
It’s not really like that anymore on the newer networks… Back 15 years ago, sure you’d miss texts or get them 4 days late, but I can’t recall the last time a text went AWOL
Huh, even when you enable “SMS delivery reports”? If someone’s phone is off and I SMS them, I get one checkmark, and once they’re online again it gets two.