Delayed SMS Messages Mean A Late Happy New Year Down Under

from the thanks-for-your-prompt-reply... dept

One thing to remember about SMS text messaging is that it's notoriously unreliable. There are plenty of stories about how a significant percentage of SMS messages get lost into the ether. Others, of course, are delayed for quite some time. Users in Australia apparently discovered this over the past couple of days when "Happy New Years" messages started arriving from friends and family in Europe. Apparently, a number of reply SMS messages sent from Europe to Australia took the... um... scenic route, and didn't make it to destination phones for five days. Part of the problem was just the surge of well wishers using SMS, while some of it was just the nature of SMS. This may be important to remember as people bring up ideas like using SMS for "early warnings" on tsunamis and other impending dangers.

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