Issue sending international SMS to the Irish EIR network

[Jimjims89]

Hi I would like to report an issue with sending international SMS to the Irish network EIR. My dad lives in Ireland and does not use WhatsApp, and he sends me SMS text messages which i can receive fine. However when i send him a SMS back he doesn’t receive it. He told me he noticed this is happening with some other messages he receives from English phone numbers.

Long story short after a lot of digging into this issue we have found this seems to be happening only when he is sent a international SMS from the O2 and Tesco Mobile network. He rang his own phone network “EIR” and after troubleshooting they told him that it looks like the the sms are getting lost on the way from O2 to EIR and they surmise that there is a problem with “the international SMS routing from O2 to EIR, and to contact O2 as it is under their control”

So i would like to highlight this issue. Many thanks.

[Tracey141068]

No its on contract , we are paying it for her , o2 have confirmed there's no restrictions or spending caps .

We have all tried to text and none of us can.

o2 have suggested contacting eircom , i have messaged them on twitter , my cousin is going to go into the eircom shop for advice . Other than either us or my cousin changing phone providers , then I can't see a solution.

Luckily I can use WhatsApp to message her.

[Tracey141068]

My mum can text her sister in Ireland without a problem,  my aunt is with Vodafone ie.

[Jimjims89]

Yes i have to agree this seems to be an issue between Eir and O2. It’s simply not acceptable to say just use WhatsApp/ skype. If you bought a car from a garage and it broke down you wouldn’t accept if the mechanic told you to just use a taxi instead. This issue still isn’t resolved and i’m going to try contact Eir and see what is going on

[pgn]

From the EIR forums, @Jimjims89 

Just in case it's something that simple.... not sure how the older Nokia phones implemented blocking, tbh.

[TM]

I've been on to GoMo as well which is the Eir value brand and no resolution. Seems to be an issue with o2 Germany as well.

[TM]

There's a thread on Boards.ie in Ireland on this regarding the same issue. A poster has suggested a process for getting Eir to fix this as follows

You could try a Freedom Of Information request as the incumbent for a list of interconnection company agreement list for calls & texts. It works in other countries as the incumbent with a Universal service obligation, does Eir fall under that because it can be applied in most cases to a mobile division including inhouse MVNO’s.

Other countries who have “enhanced” spectrum obligations on bands by gov/regulator have to abide by FOI on enquires about it, I don’t know also if that applies in Ireland.

Worth a research/try.

You may find you are being charged but only calls to o2 (UK I assume) have an interconnection agreement.

U.K. has some of the cheapest interconnect charges in the developed world, it’s less than half a penny per minute so texts are probably cheaper and it sounds like a tech issue but process of elimination is get the evidence first a interconnect agreement is in place for texts with o2UK and ram that down tech support via a official complaints process to get resolution.

As I always say, communications companies can’t communicate.

Until you use every resource available against them and enforce communication, thus a fix.

[pgn]

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@TM wrote:

I've been on to GoMo as well which is the Eir value brand and no resolution. Seems to be an issue with o2 Germany as well.

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Is it just to one or a small number of subscribers in Germany or in Ireland?  If to ANY overseas numbers, check your Spendcap settings in your MyO2 are not getting in the way, as texts from UK to other countries are chargeable.

Good luck, @TM 

[madasaf1sh]

@TM 

The problem is if the messages are sent then it is up to the recipient network to deliver those messages.. and I know personally I dont have any issues texting Vodafone IE and never had any problems with Three IE either. 

So as long as the message has left o2 then the problem is at the Eir end and its upto them to fix and resolve not really a lot o2 can do

[TM]

@madasaf1sh  agreed that issue lies with Eir not delivering transmissions. I've raised with @eir on X so hopefully they can resolve what would appear to be an easy fix.