Overseas SMS bulk carriers not working on XT pre-pay? clickatell.. tm4b.com.. etc.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Overseas SMS bulk carriers not working on XT pre-pay? clickatell.. tm4b.com.. etc.

kiwimike

8 posts

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#56110 12-Jan-2010 14:58

Does anyone have any info/ suggestions on the following issue?

SMS messages being sent from these overseas bulk carriers (tm4b.com, bulksms.com, clickatell.com, smsglobal.com) are not being delivered to my Telecom XT pre-paid numbers (I have 3 pre-paid XT sims for testing).

I have a friend who just upgraded from Telecoms old cdma network to XT on plan, and he gets SMS's from these carriers fine. However my 3 pre-paid XT cards do not receive any messages from these bulk carriers (although they receive SMS's fine from NZ networks - vodafone, 2degress etc.).

Anyone else experiencing similar problems? Telecom wasn't really able to help as I couldn't tell them who the intermediate carriers are for these services.

I was going to use clickatell as a back-end, but its not really plausible if Im not sure if they will actually arrive to Telecom numbers. I'd like to stick with a 'value' bullk provider if possible.

Anyone have any idea whats going on?

Thanks, Mike

PS telecoms old cdma network seems to receive them fine too.

NealR

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#289294 12-Jan-2010 15:10

Can you please PM me some date/time and phone numbers where this is and is not working.

Neal

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n4

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#289325 12-Jan-2010 16:29

I think most of those overseas based 'value' providers are on the shady side, they do not have a relationship with the local operators. You get what you pay for...

Samsung Note20 Ultra, on 2degrees

sbiddle

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#289334 12-Jan-2010 16:55

n4: I think most of those overseas based 'value' providers are on the shady side, they do not have a relationship with the local operators. You get what you pay for...

You don't necessarily need local agreements now that roaming hubs are becoming more common.

n4

959 posts

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#289360 12-Jan-2010 18:05

sbiddle:
n4: I think most of those overseas based 'value' providers are on the shady side, they do not have a relationship with the local operators. You get what you pay for...

You don't necessarily need local agreements now that roaming hubs are becoming more common.

Well sure they might work (most of the time) but try getting support when they don't .. OP is a case in point.

Samsung Note20 Ultra, on 2degrees

Kyanar

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#289367 12-Jan-2010 18:35

I personally avoid Clickatell like the plague, but the one thing I do have to say is that once they are alerted to issues like the one you're describing, they route around it pretty quickly. If you're a customer of theirs, just send them an email and they'll do some tests with you to establish whether they can find a route that does reach you (they have twenty-something of them available) and they change their system to use it. Funnily enough, when I dealt with them we only ever had this problem sending to Telecom phones.

Anyway, I'd still recommend dealing with a more reputable organisation like Message Media. It's more expensive, but they have agreements to guarantee QoS. Clickatell and the like are best effort, and there's a reason they're often referred to in the industry as "Junk SMS" providers.

NealR

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#289437 12-Jan-2010 21:27

I have checked the logs for all messages recieved from international desitnations. We have no record of ever recieving messages for the two numbers that you are having problems with. Our logs show clearly the message delivery process for the successful message.

At this point there is not a lot I can do as the messages you are not receiving are not getting to us. I am afraid that Clickatel need to tak to their provider for international connectivity to NZ to see where the problem might be.

Sorry about that.
Neal

The comments I write on this forum do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer and as such cannot be taken as official statements of my employer.

kiwimike

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#289461 12-Jan-2010 22:47

Thanks for that info Kyanar. I signed up to a test account at MessageMedia.co.nz - and SMS's from them don't arrive at my Telecom XT prepay accounts either! (MessageMedia delivers fine to my vodfone, 2 degrees).

Hmmm, something strange going on here. With MessageMedia no messages arrived to any of my XT pre-paid SIMs. I'm starting to think there could be something wrong with my XT sims, however they receive SMS messages fine when sent from my vodafone / 2degrees mobiles. Note: an hour later the status in Message-media for these XT phones is still set as pending. All the others were set to delivered.

As Neal noted above, when some test messages were sent from clickatell, they didnt even arrive at the telecom network (thanks for investigating Neal!).

Ill post here if find anything out. Thank you all.

RichardBulksms

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#289464 12-Jan-2010 23:03

If the sims are new, it is possible that their addresses have not been propagated to the look up tables that BulkSMS.com, Clickatell, and MessageMedia use. The look up tables used by the NZ networks are likely to be different and will be the first ones to be updated with new mobile numbers. The data will propogate from there to roaming partners, but my understanding is that this can take some weeks.

If you have had the sims for several weeks, and you are still having issues, then this is not the reason. I know BulkSMS will do tests too. I am certain they use some routes that Clickatell don't use, so if you ask them to run tests, you may have some success.

kiwimike

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#289474 12-Jan-2010 23:40

Hi Richard, Ive been having this issue with the SIMS for over 2 months since I bought them. But you may be onto something there. As a theory I wonder if Telecom updates the local providers directly with the lookup tables ... and some part of this is not getting through to these other providers.

Some important info that I forgot to add in the original post was that several months ago Clickatell's provider "performed an HLR look up for the two numbers and got the result: HLR_ABORT." Which i think it means to them the numbers don't exist. Which would fit in with the look-up table theory.

NealR

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#289508 13-Jan-2010 08:03

I personally cannot see how the SIM has anything to do with this problem. It maybe that some of these international providers have not loaded the whole 027 number range into their routing tables but the SIM has nothing to do with SMS delivery.

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RedJungle

Phil Gale
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#289513 13-Jan-2010 08:21

I logged a support ticket with SMSGlobal myself for exactly this problem yesterday. Looks like someone has dropped the ball.

(And just to rule out the SIM, it was working fine last week - but delivery to the same SIM/Number now fails)

Red Jungle: we make fantastic software

kiwimike

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#289571 13-Jan-2010 11:02

Yes it looks more and more like a routing table issue - as Neal said they don't seem to have the full XT number range. From my testing this seems to be a problem with MessageMedia.co.nz, smsglobal.com, clickatell.com, tm4b.com, bulksms.com. I'll contact a few of them and see if I can get any feedback.

daniekrige

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#298160 11-Feb-2010 22:59

You will be able to find good & bad in all routes/aggregators.

Clickatell deliver SMS through a USA partner that delivers the SMS direct to the operator. The SMS is not sent internationally and does not pass through any international gateways.

If you do not receive a SMS then it is likely something that can be fixed – just contact any of the SMS providers.

Some of the related issues Clickatell has encountered.

-          The number could be delisted, this often happens where the USA carriers delist a number and all it requires is for a number to be listed again

-          The number is incorrectly reflected on number lookups. Clickatell does a number lookup with USA operators to determine the origin of the number. In some cases we found that the number is mapped incorrectly – all that needs to be done is to remap it. Clickatell offers this service

-          The number might be from a smaller carrier that is not currently covered. If this is the case – get a provider that will find you a solution. Clickatell offers this service.

If you are still encountering a problem, please contact our support centre to assist you with the troubleshooting.