Forum Discussion
International SMS to Greece not working
For some months now, I have not been able to receive SMS messages from Greece, and the ones I send do not reach them either. This is through two different devices, and a friend (who also has T-Mobile) has the same issue, and to many different numbers and carriers in Greece, so I know it is a carrier issue on the T-mobile part. Friends on other carriers in the US do not have that problem reaching any number in that country. Unfortunately, the "engineers" always come back with the same lame answer: "We have verified that the customer is properly provisioned for messaging services seeing no errors or restrictions." Anyone have a clue if there is a way to escalate this so that they actually look beyond my account? Talking to T-Force has been the exact same loop. Gracias
drnewcomb wrote:
ljv wrote:
drnewcomb wrote:
The Greek number.
- Ironically, it is a COSMOTE number, another Deutsche Telecom company, just like T-Mobile.
Right. That's what I wanted to check. 697's been a COSMOTE prefix for at least 20 years. I've got no explanation for this.
Yeah, I have been texting to that number for years. Something changed in the message relay path in December, but T-Mobile has been unable to fix it (or been willing to). Incidentally, I do not get incoming messages from that country from other carriers also. I wonder if that is the kind of thing they may eventually fix on their own. Then again, it has been almost 5 months...
Give me an example of how the Greek number is formatted.
iMessage has had a lot of unresolved issues across all carriers. If you are on Android, try another Messaging app, like Google Messages, Pulse, or Textra.
drnewcomb wrote:
Give me an example of how the Greek number is formatted.
It is formatted as +30 and then the subscriber number. I also tried just 01130 and it had the same problem. Incoming SMS from Greece are not coming either.
syaoran wrote:
iMessage has had a lot of unresolved issues across all carriers. If you are on Android, try another Messaging app, like Google Messages, Pulse, or Textra.
It is sent to a number that is not an iPhone, so it is never an imessage to that number.
ljv wrote:
It is formatted as +30 and then the subscriber number. I also tried just 01130 and it had the same problem. Incoming SMS from Greece are not coming either.
So. it's "+30" followed by ten digits?* That should work. I'd try to talk to tech support about this.
*Greece replaced the old variable length format with a 10-digit national format about 20 years ago.
drnewcomb wrote:
ljv wrote:
It is formatted as +30 and then the subscriber number. I also tried just 01130 and it had the same problem. Incoming SMS from Greece are not coming either.
So. it's "+30" followed by ten digits?* That should work. I'd try to talk to tech support about this.
*Greece replaced the old variable length format with a 10-digit national format about 20 years ago.
Yes, I talked to someone today, but it was no help. And they had no explanation for why incoming messages could not reach me either.
ljv wrote:
Yes, I talked to someone today, but it was no help. And they had no explanation for why incoming messages could not reach me either.
That's completely unsatisfactory. Tech Support should have the ability to track your message at least to the point that it's handed off to the receiving carrier. What are the first three digits of the target number?
drnewcomb wrote:
ljv wrote:
Yes, I talked to someone today, but it was no help. And they had no explanation for why incoming messages could not reach me either.
That's completely unsatisfactory. Tech Support should have the ability to track your message at least to the point that it's handed off to the receiving carrier. What are the first three digits of the target number?
You mean my own, or the international one?
ljv wrote:
drnewcomb wrote:
ljv wrote:
Yes, I talked to someone today, but it was no help. And they had no explanation for why incoming messages could not reach me either.
That's completely unsatisfactory. Tech Support should have the ability to track your message at least to the point that it's handed off to the receiving carrier. What are the first three digits of the target number?
You mean my own, or the international one?
The Greek number.
