Multiple messages

I noticed this in Garmin's last postmortem on the AT&T issue of late:

"After several attempts to get the issue corrected both through communication with our SMS partner and software changes, we have chosen to revert to using long URLs in text messages.
This has the unfortunate consequence that many text messages will now span more than one message, adding to the volume of messages the recipient receives on their phone. It also affects customers of all carriers, not just AT&T."

I reported on this a year ago, when I received four messages, from one text that was sent to me. And the character count was far less than what may be attributed to hidden required back-end info. Since Garmin seems to be unable to make headway in this challenge with all of their carrier "partners", they should give a larger allowance to messages on each plan, since this is different than the marketing of the plans. It's clearly not just an AT&T thing. Just sayin.

0 twolpert over 5 years ago

This issue reported in the post mortem of the AT&T SMS issue is not the same one you are talking about. At least, I don't think so.

The post mortem is talking about the number of SMS messages sent to the recipient's phone, not the number of satellite messages generated by the device. It's the satellite messages which count against your plan. The number of equivalent SMS messages is only going to cost the recipient (assuming they have a cell plan which charges by the message). The URL in question is inserted on the Garmin severs, not on the inReach device itself. As such, it has no bearing on the number of satellite messages.

That said, I have not noticed any recent situations where a single satellite message resulted in more than one SMS message - excluding issues related to the data added on the server, such as the URL, signature, or location (as text).