SMS still considered low priority traffic?

[techbloke]

I seem to recall reading in some technical documentation somehwere that within GSM networks (and presumably in subsequent generations as some of the functions were still based on the standard) that SMS delivery was considered 'best efforts' and would be considered low priority in times of network congestion, I'm talking standard Monday to Sunday, not the old NYE after midnight traffic jam you used to get back in the day.

Is this still the case does anyone know?

Asking purely out of interest.

I'll hang up my anorak now.

[techbloke]

As I said, it was some years ago but wondered if any of the good Threeistas could shed some light, as I said in another thread got a couple of people on O2 in the house and they complain about the texts taking a while to arrive, I know their network status has been Red for quite a few months so wondering if it's a combination of the two.

[JonathanB · Accepted solution]

Hey @techbloke,

I believe that SMS does have a lower priority than say call and data traffic so congestion on either the originating or recipient network could affect these. You'd probably find that in this sort of situation calls and data would be disrupted too though.

Most SMS are delivered within seconds when both users have coverage as it's only a few bytes of data. When the service was created networks had much lower capacity and speeds. Not sure how long you'll have had a mobile, but do you remember WAP Internet pages? 

A good starting point for the issue you've described would probably be to try and narrow down any consistencies, are these o2 users having issues with SMS to and from other Three users, does the location sent and received from seem to be a factor, is the issue two way i.e do the delays seem to be with receiving messages both ways?

Sorry if I've misunderstood on the last question, but I wasn't sure if you were saying that messages you send are taking a while to arrive, or is it messages they send you that are delayed, or both?

Sorry for all the questions but depending on the answers it might give us a hint whether this is a general network issues, or something specific to one or more users involved.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[techbloke]

@JonathanB 

Thanks, was just asking out of pure interest.

Have had issues myself with delayed messages in the past but not since I've moved to Three.

[JonathanB]

Ah got you, think I missed the "some years ago" part. 🙂

[sc1999]

I hope that it is not the case as so many companies rely on texting for two-factor authentication. Credit card and banking would have to reconsider how they send 2FA texts if delays were even minutes. Just imagine standing in a shop waiting minutes for a text to confirm a purchase.