"3" Ireland - Serious international SMS problems

Solair

I'm a contract customer on "3" Ireland and have had some totally nightmarish problems with international text messaging.

While roaming in the UK I sent a text to a Vodafone UK customer. The SMS repeated over and over for several days. The person who I sent it to didn't understand or care that this was a network glitch and phoned me up very angrly asking me to stop £(£$*£( flooding her phone with SMS messages. She told me if I didn't do something about she'd ring vodafone and report me. Which she did, they told her they couldn't block it and I rang 3 Ireland who were polite but totally unhelpful and unable to do anything to recall the SMS.

I have since had to set my SMS messages to expire after one hour as otherwise I risk major diplomatic incidents.

The problem now is that I am afraid to SMS any non +353 (irish number). Or even an Irish number that might be roaming. I had a similar incident when SMS was sent to a Vodafone Ireland phone which was in Northern Ireland on Vodafone UK.

Anyway, the problem is going on for months and doens't appear to be resolving itself and I am very unhappy with 3 and sorry that I ever signed up with them.

Their international roaming agreements are also severely lacking. I feel I was duped into signing up for a lousey product.

Anyway, I have requested (in writing) that 3 provide me with details of how to terminate my contract with them. I really want to get onto a "proper" network again.

Any one else having similar issues?:(

Sam Vimes

eveyone has the same problem. it only happened to me once and it was to my mate so it was hilarious. 3 are grand until you go or text abroad at which point they suck donkey balls. that's why i have a back up phone for those rare occasions i go abroad


meteor have been around for years and still don't have full roaming agreements. these things will get sorted out as soon as they get the finger out and tell other networks they exist

Cabaal

Txt me landlord the other day and turned out she was out of the country and she got the txt loads of times, unfortunately I couldn't txt her back to explain the problem as she would have gotten that txt loads of timers also

funny this time around tbh

Jambo

Folks,
Iwas having the same problem with 3 Ireland so I rang their Irish customer support centre ( In India ) where they assured me that I have not been charged for the extra texts ( sometimes 20 repeats ) and to resolve the issue to change my message validity settings on the phone to the minimum value .

This seems to have resolved the issue .. and that was 3 to 4 months ago !

Solair

Setting the messages to their minimum validity period just means that the SMS server is told to give up after 1 hour. The messages will still repeat, just not for quite so long.

The issue is definitely not resolved.

I can appreciate that they're a new network, but I never had problems on this scale when I was on other new networks e.g. the early days of Meteor.

All I know is that the issue is of a big enough importance for me to want to look at re-connecting to a "traditional" network.

I know they didn't charge me for the message but they did create a huge incident with a business contact. It was very embarassing!

I would rather they just block SMS to numbers that they don't have agreements with than deliver them repeatedly.

Blaster99

The problem as explained by 3 is that they don't get delivery acks so they keep trying. Perhaps the smart thing to do is to assume that the message was delivered and not resend even in the absence of an ack. Some messages might get lost, but that's less inconvenient than having the message repeated a billion times. It's fairly strange that it's a problem that only affects 3. It pretty much implies that there's something wrong at their end.

rogue-entity

^ I had said that before on a different thread, about this very same topic.

The problem is a little more complicated then that though. 3 Ireland (272 05) are a new network and as such they dont have much "weight" in the global market. Generally "local" networks sign mutual peering agreements to forward each others texts and mms messages, and 3 have this in place so there is no issues with texting local numbers. Foreign networks sign roaming agreements with each other too, and this allows for the peering of Text and MMS services where applicable. All of 3's roaming partners will receive texts from irish 3 phones without incident, but when texting a foreign network like Voda UK who has no roaming agreement with 3, 3's message centre probably cant forward the text to the other person because they dont know where to send it.

AFAIK, when you roam, your phone makes no contact with the home networks systems, the foreign network transparently maps URLs, numbers etc for your homepage and message centre and even network access point onto its own systems and forwards data accordingly. So if I was on 3UK and went to send a text to Voda UK, 3UKs message server knows where to send it and it does. If I want to send a text home, 3UKs server sends it back to the 3 IRL server which forwards it on. I would assume that the lack of roaming agreement with voda and 3 IRL means that although the messege came from a 3 IRL phone and is received by the customer, Voda dosnt send an ACK back because the number of the sender doesnt match or something.

In any case, its not just 3 that are to blame, its also the local network who are doing the actual delivering.

Owen

I had the same issue with my Vodafone Contract phone in Thailand last November. I text an Irish number, and it repeated over and over again, so it's not just 3 who have international issues. TBH, I'd switch to 3 in the morning, except for their woeful handset selection (A common problem with networks these days, why can't we just buy any handset and have the Network subsidize it as in circa 2000), and the issues being unable to text some American networks.

Blaster99

3 could easily have the same phone selection here and the UK seeing as the "Irish" stuff is run out of the UK. I'm surprised that they don't. Other than that, there's a bit more to it these days with 3 running special firmware and needing to ensure the Planet3 stuff works on all the phones, etc.

I can understand 3's problem with the roaming agreements. This is valuable for 3 but probably mostly hassle for the other operators so it ends up on the backburner. A bit of pan-EU regulation in this area wouldn't go amiss.

Mind you, for the UK and the other countries they're in, they could route the SMS's through their domestic network and avoid the problem.

Dellas

ned78 wrote:

I had the same issue with my Vodafone Contract phone in Thailand last November. I text an Irish number, and it repeated over and over again, so it's not just 3 who have international issues. .

To be honest it is a BIG 3 problem, I joined up on the first day they started here and I have now cancelled my contract with 3 they are amazingly bad when it comes to sending texts abroad/whilst abroad/roaming charges etc..

If you want to use 3 for just internal Irish calls/texts etc... then they are great but outside of the ROI forget it !!!! Its hit and miss all the time. I know I travel twice a month to various countries and 3 are the worst.

I always use Vodafone for abroad, VF passport is great and their coverage is good too. No problems sending SMS to 99% of anywhere in the world. I can honestly say I have never had the repeat sms problem with VF where ever I have been.

My advice is use 3 here and have a back up VF pay as you go for abroad.

1huge1

another problem is that my dad got a nokia E61 on vodafone and i was using vodafone live and the internet on it and i was amazed how good it was
which reminds me of 3's crappy walled garden

i mean the internet on the E61 was brilliant like

Owen

1huge1 wrote:

i mean the internet on the E61 was brilliant like

Not to thread jack, but if Nokia had included 2 camers in the E61 for photos and video conferencing, I'd buy one. Until they do, my n90 will do quite nicely.

rogue-entity

O2 has the most roaming agreements out of any country, over 151, but you need a contract phone to take advantage of that. If you do a lot of travelling, I would say, move to O2, they are certainly better and cheaper then vodafone IMO. Voda doesnt have so many roaming agreements, but almost all the agreements it does have are with networks it owns or is a partner with. Meteor has only a smattering of roaming networks, just like 3, but meteor has been around long enough to get more networks on board, and roaming for its prepay customers too. 3 is a year old since June/July, so its no surprise they only have a smattering of roaming agreements. They cant get agreements with Voda UK and O2 UK because those two networks wont play ball. But good things come to those who wait, and soon enough you will be able to send/receive texts to all the UK and european networks. So far you can text the US, but AFAIK, only Cingular and T-Mobile customers. If they could get Sprint on board too I would be happy.

BuffyBot

Meteor has only a smattering of roaming networks, just like 3, but meteor has been around long enough to get more networks on board, and roaming for its prepay customers too.

Meteor actually has quite an extensive set of roaming agreements.

1huge1

ned78 wrote:

Not to thread jack, but if Nokia had included 2 camers in the E61 for photos and video conferencing, I'd buy one. Until they do, my n90 will do quite nicely.

i agree the lack of a camera is annoying

i think a bigger problem that the internation txting is the walled garden

rogue-entity

BuffyBot wrote:

Meteor actually has quite an extensive set of roaming agreements.

I stand corrected, I ment to say that they had a smattering of agreements when they were only a year launched, and as you remember their coverage was far from good either.

My point is that more networks will come on board and sign a roaming agreement with 3 as the months move on. For now, I can say with no doubt, I am very happy with 3's service. They are significantly cheaper then the competition, and while meteor may be cheaper in many areas, they lack 3G which I wanted to use, and of course, Meteor are owned by Eircon, so I am slightly biased against them.

stimpson

Hate to drag up an old post, but I've just shelled out for a Satnav Program for my S60 phone, only to find out that I can't use the software because it needs to register with SMS to a number in Finland or via GPRS. Three provide neither. I'm sooo frustrated - their Customer Care is an oxymoron - they don't care

Thank god I'm out of contract in a months time. I'm planning on getting the phone unlocked, getting a PAYG sim from Voda or O2 and using that for Satnav. Then I'll sign up with a new network and get a shiny new phone.

1huge1

getting the phone unlocked now costs €130

mayhem#

You might want to have a look here...

E.

Sam Vimes

1huge1 wrote:

getting the phone unlocked now costs €130

not on bill pay !?!??!?!? :eek:

and its good to see my opinion of 3 before the whole pointless hassle started. oh how its changed

1huge1

ya i looked at that and was thinking oh 3 is back in his good books...then i noticed the date

i see im still coming out with the same crap