International texting to Russia does not work

[irinaa]

I moved from Rogers to Public Mobile last week, and since then my relatives in Russia no longer receive texts from me. I am on the 25$ plan which says it is supposed to include unlimited international texting. Do I need to do anything to activate that?

I have a Samsung S9 and it's on Android 10. I have tried using the default Samsung's messaging app as well as Android Messages. 
When I send a message to a Russian number, it looks normal on my side (says Delivered) but they don't receive any texts from me. This has never happened before when I was with Bell or Rogers.

Any thoughts on what may be going on here?

EDIT: forgot to say that I can receive message from them. We tested with multiple numbers from different carriers.

[irinaa]

At long last, this issue is resolved - as in my dad is leaving his carrier (Megafon) because the issue is on their side.

This problem is caused by Megafon's inability to properly communicate with Syniverse, a hub that carriers use to communicate with one another. Megafon admitted that they have a "technical issue" but they are unable (or unwilling) to resolve it. This was revealed a month ago and they stopped commutating after that. Considering that in Russia carriers are cheap and extremely competitive, my dad will be switching to another carrier that supports Syniverse. We already tested with Beeline and MTS, and both receive my SMS without any issues.

That's my quick update! 

[LurganIeUk]

@irinaa 👏 you have fantastic trouble shooting skills!!

[dabr]

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@irinaa wrote:

@LurganIeUk I had a friend who also just switched from Rogers to Public Mobile try texting my relatives. They did not receive his message.

@dabr I tried toggling the service off and on but unfortunately it did not yield any result.  

I asked friends with other carriers (Rogers, Bell, and Fido) to try texting my relatives, and all their messages were delivered successfully. I do not know anyone with Telus but it would be an interesting test because I heard Public Mobile uses Telus' backend, so maybe this problem would also exist with Telus. 
I also had my relatives confirm with their local carriers that they do not have any blocks or restrictions of any kinds of their accounts and they should be able to receive all messages.

I ended up contacting the mods about this.

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@irinaa   Thanks for updating us and sorry to hear non of the suggestions helped.  Hopefully, you'll get it resolved by the moderators soon. 

Please let us know why you weren't able to send texts to Russia if moderators give you an update as to what the issue is/was.  Good luck.

[irinaa]

@LurganIeUk I had a friend who also just switched from Rogers to Public Mobile try texting my relatives. They did not receive his message.

@dabr I tried toggling the service off and on but unfortunately it did not yield any result.  

I asked friends with other carriers (Rogers, Bell, and Fido) to try texting my relatives, and all their messages were delivered successfully. I do not know anyone with Telus but it would be an interesting test because I heard Public Mobile uses Telus' backend, so maybe this problem would also exist with Telus. 
I also had my relatives confirm with their local carriers that they do not have any blocks or restrictions of any kinds of their accounts and they should be able to receive all messages.

I ended up contacting the mods about this.

[irinaa]

@LurganIeUk yes, local texting works.

[LurganIeUk]

Does local texting work....or to another country?

[irinaa]

@dabr on that's an interesting idea, I will try toggling the service! Thank you!
I will also submit a ticket to the mods.

[dabr]

@irinaa   If you're unable to resolve this, I think you should have moderators take a look at your account.  You can submit a ticket via SIMon chatbot ? mark and follow the prompts or private message Moderator_Team via this link: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

While you wait to hear back from them maybe try the lost/stolen trick to see if it makes any difference.  Log into account and select plans/add-ons tab, then lost/stolen, suspend service, log out wait a few mins, log back in and resume service, log out and restart your phone.

[irinaa]

@LurganIeUk yes, I have a friend on Public Mobile and I asked him to text from his number to test if that would work. It's currently nighttime in Russia so we haven't heard back yet.

If that works, maybe it has something to do with porting the number. I ported my number from Rogers whereas my friend got a new phone number when he moved to Public Mobile.

I will update this post once I have an update.

[LurganIeUk]

Do you know some one else on PM or one of us here that could try to text one of your numbers in Russia? And see if successful.  

If previous successful texts from other carrier were from same number as your PM number (because you ported) the “from” number should not be an issue. 

[hairbag1]

@irinaa...

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@hairbag1 wrote:

Might be a problem on the receiving end. Make sure that they haven't somehow Blocked your texts.

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My guess is that something is amiss on their end...not yours.

If you can successfully send / receive texts in Canada, it should work for International texts as well.

Keep us posted though in case this ever comes up again.

Good luck and welcome to PM.

[irinaa]

@gblackma thanks, I will give it a try. You too stay safe!

[gblackma]

@irinaa Try downloading the TextNow app and and use it over WiFi to send your message to Russia it could be as simple as @hairbag1 suggested above.  Stay safe. 

[Anonymous]

I was fishing for whether you picked up a new number that the Russian system might not know about yet.

But nevermind.

[irinaa]

@Anonymous wait, you are probably asking about here as in Public Mobile! Sorry for the misunderstanding. I transferred my old number from Rogers 

[irinaa]

@Anonymous I moved to Canada many years ago and I got a new number here. I was originally  with Bell, then I moved to Rogers, then now to Public Mobile.

[Anonymous]

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@irinaa wrote:

@hairbag1 it is possible, they are investigating with their local carrier too. 
However, they were able to receive messages from me when I was with Rogers and Bell before.

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When you came over here, did you get a new number or did you transfer your old number over too?

[irinaa]

@hairbag1 it is possible, they are investigating with their local carrier too. 
However, they were able to receive messages from me when I was with Rogers and Bell before.

[irinaa]

@gblackma Both them and I tried restarting,. Unfortunately no success. I've tried sending both SMS and MMS (even trying having Data enabled) and they did not receive anything.
They only tried sending me SMS because their plan does not support MMS. I receive their messages no problem. 
We also tried both in English and Cyrillic just to make sure it's not the alphabet that is causing the issues.

[hairbag1]

Might be a problem on the receiving end. Make sure that they haven't somehow Blocked your texts.

[gblackma]

@irinaa Try restarting your phone and sending an sms message to eliminate if its the size of the message. Ask them to send you an sms and mms message. Report if this works or fails. 

[irinaa]

@gblackma yes, I am. I am using the same numbers (start with +7) that I've always been.

[gblackma]

@irinaa I assume you are using the correct exit code 011 7 or +7. Stay safe.