SMS reminders failing on O2/Eplus, questions regarding background
(closed account) says:
Hey there!
As the topic says, I'm having issues with the SMS reminders. I tried them with my Eplus/blau.de card and my O2/Fonic card. Both blau.de and Fonic are the no-frills/discount services of the respective networks, and have several million users in Germany. So I don't believe it's a minor error, but that it's possible it's not working on technical grounds.
I assume the SMS reminders work as following (could you correct me if I'm wrong?): Once upon a time one did not only receive a mobile phone number, but also an "email adress" like the following: @. In the mid 2000's I used this for example to be notified if i've got a new email by setting up a forward filter with gmail. Sadly, this service seems to have been canceled by most carriers with the advent of fancy smartphones and UMTS.
So I imagine RTM tries to use exactly this to remind us of to-dos. Sadly there's no explanation of the technical backgrounds, so most of us will never know why this doesn't work.
Nonetheless, it would be highly appreciated if you could clarify my assumptions.
TIA
Andy
As the topic says, I'm having issues with the SMS reminders. I tried them with my Eplus/blau.de card and my O2/Fonic card. Both blau.de and Fonic are the no-frills/discount services of the respective networks, and have several million users in Germany. So I don't believe it's a minor error, but that it's possible it's not working on technical grounds.
I assume the SMS reminders work as following (could you correct me if I'm wrong?): Once upon a time one did not only receive a mobile phone number, but also an "email adress" like the following: @. In the mid 2000's I used this for example to be notified if i've got a new email by setting up a forward filter with gmail. Sadly, this service seems to have been canceled by most carriers with the advent of fancy smartphones and UMTS.
So I imagine RTM tries to use exactly this to remind us of to-dos. Sadly there's no explanation of the technical backgrounds, so most of us will never know why this doesn't work.
Nonetheless, it would be highly appreciated if you could clarify my assumptions.
TIA
Andy
(closed account) says:
Just tried it with Google Calendar. Works. I'm quite flabbergasted.
Hi Andy,
We currently use standard email-to-SMS gateways to send these notifications. As you mentioned, this involves sending an email which is converted to an SMS message, and we're only able to send these reminders on networks that make this service available to us.
Would you be able to contact us via email so we can take a closer look at these reminders on your network?
Thanks!
We currently use standard email-to-SMS gateways to send these notifications. As you mentioned, this involves sending an email which is converted to an SMS message, and we're only able to send these reminders on networks that make this service available to us.
Would you be able to contact us via email so we can take a closer look at these reminders on your network?
Thanks!
(closed account) says:
I think we can close this one. I researched some more and came up with this Website: http://mobilfaq.in-ulm.de/sms.faq.html
Relevant part: "Dazu eine SMS mit dem Inhalt "START" an 7676245 (SMSMAIL) schicken, eine kostenlose Bestaetigung folgt."
More relevant part: "Der _Empfang_ einer eMail als SMS _kostet_ 0,20 EUR."
Translation: Send an SMS with "START" to 7676245. Receiving an SMS via this way costs 0,20 €.
(After setting it up this way it worked. For the interested reader in the future: There's also an explanation of how to do this on T-Mobile and Vodafone.)
What's funny, or drove me mad, is the fact that I couldn't find any information regarding this on the official company website. Most likely they don't even know about the little tricks their stuff can do.
So this isn't the fault of RTM, but rather of those providers. All of this makes it harder to understand why it works with Google. Most likely they send "real" SMS.
Relevant part: "Dazu eine SMS mit dem Inhalt "START" an 7676245 (SMSMAIL) schicken, eine kostenlose Bestaetigung folgt."
More relevant part: "Der _Empfang_ einer eMail als SMS _kostet_ 0,20 EUR."
Translation: Send an SMS with "START" to 7676245. Receiving an SMS via this way costs 0,20 €.
(After setting it up this way it worked. For the interested reader in the future: There's also an explanation of how to do this on T-Mobile and Vodafone.)
What's funny, or drove me mad, is the fact that I couldn't find any information regarding this on the official company website. Most likely they don't even know about the little tricks their stuff can do.
So this isn't the fault of RTM, but rather of those providers. All of this makes it harder to understand why it works with Google. Most likely they send "real" SMS.