Vodafone Smart X9 handset on Skinny - SMS unreliable on 4G.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Vodafone Smart X9 handset on Skinny - SMS unreliable on 4G.

deadlyllama

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#249525 15-May-2019 07:19

I bought my wife a Vodafone Smart X9 from Warehouse Stationery to use on Skinny. It supports all the right bands, the price is right, it seems like a decent handset for the price. Even has one of those fancy dual camera things.

But: when it's on 4G, on Skinny, SMSes take ages to send and often fail. If we force the handset to 3G only the problem goes away.

Warehouse Stationery say talk to Skinny. Skinny advised us to buy a new SIM card - which hasn't made any difference.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Is it the network? The handset model? Is this particular handset faulty? I've never hit a fault like this before, all we want is a working phone!

Linux

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#2237104 15-May-2019 07:33

What options do you have under SMS settings on the handset?

And it's zero chance of been a sim card issue

If you want a working handset then buy one off the carrier you are going to be using so you don't have issues like the above

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#2237105 15-May-2019 07:35

Pretty hard to know what exactly could be wrong but it does further emphasise why you should only use phones on the network for which they have software for. All networks are not the same, and it's the reason why operators customise firmware.

Normally you'll only find minor issues in moving handsets between networks (such as lack of 4G carrier aggregation) but there are a myriad of things that can impact performance and there are literally hundreds of threads on here over the years detailing issues with people who move handsets between networks and fine issues.

deadlyllama

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#2238846 16-May-2019 10:11

I guess I've just never hit this sort of issue before. Our 2degrees Galaxy J2s worked fine on Skinny. Is this problem more likely at the cheaper end of the handset spectrum, at the smaller brand end, or is the whole 4G for data, 3G for voice & SMS thing just more complex and prone to failure? Sigh. I'd switch carriers if it made the phones work but Vodafone and 2degrees reception here is poor.

Edit: and I can't find SMS settings (other than some basic MMS stuff) anywhere on the handset.

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#2238847 16-May-2019 10:14

2degrees offers Wi-Fi calling and Vodafone Sure Signal for better coverage options

SMS are sent over 4G when the handset is attached to the 4G network

deadlyllama

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#2238943 16-May-2019 11:16

Linux:

2degrees offers Wi-Fi calling and Vodafone Sure Signal for better coverage options

SMS are sent over 4G when the handset is attached to the 4G network

Wi-Fi calling & sure signal don't work when you're not at home...

I didn't know that about 4G & SMS ... is SMS on 4G all MMS? That could mean the MMS settings mattered a bit more...

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#2239073 16-May-2019 12:44

MMS settings are not related to SMS

Yes SMS are sent over 4G if they were not then everytime a SMS is sent and received the network would need to hand the handset down to 3G and that would put big load on the signaling side of the network