mjkkress's profile

Contributor

 • 

17 Messages

Sunday, May 14th, 2023 11:16 PM

Closed

Cannot receive SMS messages from South Africa

My daughter is traveling in South Africa.  She has an iPhone 11.  I have a Galaxy S21.  She purchased a new SIM card at the Cape Town airport.  She is able to exchange text messages with her friends who on iPhones.  She can receive text messages from me.  She cannot respond to my text messages.  She cannot initiate new text messages to me.  She is able to use other messaging applications (such as sending Instagram messages.)  We did not sign up for the international travel plan with Xfinity (she bought the SIM card instead of that or paying the fees for SMS or calls or cell data).  Any ideas for workarounds or fixes?

Problem Solver

 • 

773 Messages

2 years ago

Sounds like a problem with her South African provider plan. Her plan may only include sending local SMS. 

If she is adding anything (such as an emoji, picture, video, etc.) it becomes an MMS instead of an SMS (160 character limit). MMS may not be included in her plan and MMS doesn’t always work cross-carrier, especially to Xfinity Mobile. 

Contributor

 • 

17 Messages

@DaveO3​ 

Thanks Dave.  I was wondering about local vs. international SMS.  I just never really thought about iMessages not going over the SMS network, but apparently that is the case.  Her mother has an iPhone for work and they are able to exchange messages over 160 characters and with emojis.  To the best of my knowledge she was not adding anything in the text to me that would turn it into an MMS.  Guess she'll have to keep using Instagram messages to talk to her Dad - I'm not going to switch to an iPhone just for 6 weeks!

forum icon

New to the Community?

Start Here