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Comment by jeromec | Hacker News Reader

Hey Jason (or anyone else) SMS was mentioned as part of immediate communications. Is this true yet today? A sticking point for me with SMS was that messages were randomly subject to hours of delay upon being sent because of the SMS distribution system. It's because of that along with knowing that far more robust (and free) email on devices was on the way that I never got behind SMS. However, I now have something in mind which could apply SMS, since it's available to more phone types, but it needs to be immediate. I did a check on Google, and the FAQ at Twilio as well, but can't find whether this potential lag is still there. Does anyone have insight on this?

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I think it's at the point of immediate, but subject to delays just like any other technology. I haven't had an SMS delay in quite a while.

I would curious to see more insight into the history of SMS, technology behind it,etc. Wikipedia does an okay job. Correct me if I'm wrong, but SMS does not use the data network? I have been able to send sms messages with no data service before.

Yes, from when I looked into it the bottleneck seemed to be the SMSC (short message service center), which receives the message then sends it out to users when they are available. Apparently, SMSC's often became overloaded with the popularity of SMS. You're right, SMS I believe takes place on a separate mobile network rather than the open Internet, which is why it's subject to the fees and different behavior. I'm at a point where I'm torn between writing SMS technology off in favor of email, or considering it for certain things, because we're still a long way away from everyone comfortably accessing their email via mobile.

SMS is not guaranteed to deliver, either within a certain time boundary or even at all. I can only really speak from my own limited experience on AT&T and Verizon, but those delays seem to largely be gone. I haven't had a message delay in quite a long time. If it's going to deliver at all, it'll deliver within seconds.

Yeah, I imagine the technology should have improved from a few years ago when the delays seemed prevalent. You're also right that some messages may not go through at all. I'll probably need to research deeper into the current technology and issues surrounding SMS.

Anecdotal, but I have experienced an SMS message delivery delay of about 7 hours within the past week (on Verizon). I would agree that delays are less common, but they're by no means over with.

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the info.

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