Cingular Text Messaging Cutbacks!

I've just contacted Cingular (N. California) about text messaging service to other countries. Cingular seems to have cut back some services in recent weeks. For example:

* No more text delivery reports - If you send internationally, you know how important this is! Every major carrier in the world supports these!

* Incoming text messages converted to confusing email format. This results in a 160 character message divided into 3 messages! Note billing implications.

* Messages from some countries/carriers no longer accepted. Example, many problems with Vodafone UK.

Instead of catching up with the rest of the world, Cingular is falling further and further behind. The only way they are going to be a winner in text is to come up to speed, and install modern message center software.

Maybe some complaints to customer service en-mass are in order???

Comments??? Thanks!

 

Yes, you're probably right that most users don't care about international texting. But there's a big and growing number of users who travel back and forth, and many more who just occasionally travel abroad and could benefit from a reliable messaging service to keep in touch. It's amazing how big text and MMS are in the UK and Europe, and how seamlessly they work between countries. They've had their act together for years there - the US is just catching on, and really slowly. I just hate to see Cingular (and undoubtedly other carriers) get away with technically inferior service, no matter what the price incentives. The worst thing is...it used to work fine!

 

Hi kevin-

Thanks for your feedback on this - you seem like an experienced user.

And you may be right about spam control, especially since Vodafone previously had problems in the UK with email-originated texts, which they stopped accepting for a while.

However, I doubt that spam will ever be a problem when the originator has to pay to initiate each text. I think the problem is really Cingular's inability to make the proper revenue sharing deals with the major carriers, as all carriers have done with each other in Europe. Instead, they likely tried to cheap it out in some way but using the email go-between. (just a guess)

In the UK where I lived for a few years until recently, SMS is a very useful personal tool as you point out, but is also used by millions of businesses to keep in touch with employees and customers. The US could learn a lot in this area. Also, in Europe nobody pays to receive texts - only the sender pays. This makes much more sense to me. But that's a side issue....

regards,
Scott
Redwood City, CA

 

Re: All Delivery Reports eliminated

By the way, I forgot to mention that it seems that text Delivery Reports have been eliminated, not only for international messages, but for all messages!! Anyone who relies on these like I do, I urge you to complain to Cingular.

In California the number for Cingular Technical Support is 1 866 287 6131. (may be the same for other areas too)

 

For the record, Cingular now sends text messages reliably to all 5 UK carriers, although as I mentioned in an earlier post, delivery receipts have been eliminated. As far as receiving messages from UK carriers, this also works pretty well, and recently the UK carriers seem to be using a proper SMS intercarrier protocol, which allows multiple part messages, etc.

-Scott