Not receiving some texts, possibly all international

[neman]

Hey all. I signed up for Public Mobile pretty recently, and so far things have been alright. Not the best coverage in my area, but seems OK. Voice, data, text, and phone are all working.

However...

I consistently haven't been able to receive texts from international senders. (At least that's the one common thread I've been able to detect.) So far, I have consistently failed to receive texts from:

• US TTP (DHS uses SMS as a primary 2FA method, which is how I discovered the problem in the first place)
• http://www.rainedout.com/help/test_phone
• https://www.proovl.com/test (confirmed it was able to receive text from me)
• http://www.smseverywhere.com/send.htm#SENDER (which claims to only work for T-Mobile, Sprint, and Nextel, but that's obviously out-of-date wording)

All Canadian senders have gotten to me just fine. Sending from my phone has been fine.

Phone is a BlackBerry PRIV (Android 6.0.1 AAW068) that I've used for quite some time now, and it's worked under many different conditions with many different SIMs and many different carriers in many different countries for years. I'm confident it's good.

I've got a strong Wi-Fi connection, semi-decent mobile data connection, and same with voice. The phone has the most current stock Android Messages app, which was enabled to use data for SMS when available many months ago. No problem with mobile phone calls.

The one consistent item I can tell is all those senders are from outside Canada.

Thoughts?

[neman · Accepted solution]

So, @GreatCanadian's sister and a colleague in the US both successfully sent me texts from US phones on US carriers. Then on Monday, for no obvious reason, I was able to receive texts from US DHS. So while I don't have an answer, the issue seems resolved for now. Thanks to everyone who made such an effort to help!

[neman]

So far I've received the UK text from @Luddite and a friend in the US on ATT. The original automated sender (US DHS) still doesn't work, and neither do my other automated test senders. I wonder if they're being blocked as SMS spam?

[neman]

Will do - thanks @GreatCanadian!

[GreatCanadian]

Also, if you want a text message sent from a U.S. number you can PM me.

GC

[neman]

Thanks @Luddite! I'll take you up on that. As soon as I can figure out how to PM, you'll get one from me. 🙂 

[Luddite]

@neman I can send you a text originating here from a UK number; send me a privately message if you'd like to try that. 

Alternatively you could create a forum account on giffgaff.com and ask for a volunteer to send you one directly from the UK. It would cost them only 10 cents. 

[neman]

Update: Mary the moderator checked a few things but they didn't pan out, so she's opened up a ticket and I'm working with tech support. They're stuck until I have examples of numbers from which the texts are failing. The texts are coming from servers at giant faceless corporations, not individual human beings. (These are things like "we've just sent you a confirmation code" texts.) No chance of getting the numbers. I have to convince someone outside of Canada to send me texts with exact timestamps so we can start a trace.

Wish me luck !

[neman]

Thanks for the clarification, @Anonymous and @Anonymous! I would have been surprised if PM disabled receipt from out of plan areas. Looking forward to feedback from the mods.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Alex888 wrote:

@neman  So you know, the same goes for international calls. If you don't have it in your plan you cannot make or recieve any international calls.

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@Alex888Your statement about international calls not correct.  You do not need an international calling plan to be able to receive international calls.  You can receive calls from anywhere as long as you have some sort of calling plan (assuming you are within the area of the plan, if applicable).

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And to add even more specificity...plan means your base, prepaid per term service. The international calling capability here is called an add-on. Buy once - consume over time.

"Area" being Canada (or also US on a roaming add-on (officially)).

[Anonymous]

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@Alex888 wrote:

@neman  So you know, the same goes for international calls. If you don't have it in your plan you cannot make or recieve any international calls.

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@Alex888Your statement about international calls not correct.  You do not need an international calling plan to be able to receive international calls.  You can receive calls from anywhere as long as you have some sort of calling plan (assuming you are within the area of the plan, if applicable).

[Alex888]

@neman  So you know, the same goes for international calls. If you don't have it in your plan you cannot make or recieve any international calls.

[neman]

Hi @Dunkman. I popped the SIM into an old Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and tested using the three hyperlinked sites in my original message. They consistently failed in the exact same manner. I'll send a PM about PM 🙂 and report back when I get some kind of answer.

[neman]

Hi @Alex888. Thanks for the check. I appear to have the correct text option:

I am a bit surprised to hear I wouldn't be able to receive international texts without it, but thankfully it's covered in my package.

[Dunkman]

@neman

If you have a spare phone lying around, you can put your PM SIM card into the other phone. This will help determine whether it is a hardware  or PM service issue.  

If it is PM service problem, you may want to contact moderator to help.  

Send a private message to moderator through the following link :

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[Alex888]

Do you have international texting or just Canada wide? If you don't have international texts then you cannot send or receive them. PM won't add charges for using services not covered by your plan, but you can't use services that you haven't already paid for.