mjkkress's profile

Contributor

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17 Messages

Sunday, May 14th, 2023 11:16 PM

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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

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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. 

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