Inreach SMS not working in Argentina and Chile

Yep, i tried:

- from differents smartphone in New Caledonia: it never works

- from my smartphone with  a french sim card from France: it works. ( in the 2 ways)

So my conclusion is that it depends of the operator of the country.

Garmin said they can't do anything about that. Perhaps, but so,

- don't give wrong commercial advertising to your customers.

- propose special offers and plan to the Customer who are living in those country. Or eventually propose to refund a part of the device.

GARMIN does nothing for their customers, it s just like that, that all.

It's a pity!

In countries where I experience failed delivery of SMS sent from inReach device to mobile phone recipients, I have contacted the main mobile network operators.

Here is an example of message you can copy and adapt:

//

Please forward the following feedback to relevant department.

I believe it would be the people at [operator] who work with SMS filtering for spam.

Garmin has a range of inReach products that use the Iridium satellite network to send text messages from inReach devices to mobile numbers worldwide.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/outdoor-recreation/satellite-communicators/

The send-number for these messages is a normal landline number that varies with where the Garmin customer is located and at what country the device was initiated.

The format of these messages looks like this:

[Message text] inreachlink.com/XXYYZZQ [location coordinates] – [name of customer]

I believe these messages from Garmin servers are labeled spam and not forwarded to the recipient.

Example I tested in [location of test] today:

Message will be received by [operator] from +XX YY ZZ QQ WW and was sent to [recipient phone number]

“[full massage as it appears on mobile phone]”

This is a problem among some mobile operators around the world and I wanted to mention it to you, so that hopefully this service can work in [country/location].

I suggest you find a product manager responsible for SMS services and forward my info to them.

I need no response, but I hope you do some testing. Because the person sending the message from Garmin inReach will never know that [local carrier] had failed delivery of message to recipient.

For reference, this SMS message format works fine with delivery from same source to [other carrier] mobile numbers in [relevant close location or country].

//

You are probably better off opening a support ticket with Garmin. Garmin proactively works to resolve issues like this. They have established channels with the carriers. But Garmin can only engage with the providers if somebody opens a ticket about the problem.

And yes, I realize the OP has contacted Garmin support. And it's taking a while. But it's sill more effective than DIY contact with the provider. 

Note that the inclusion of the (possibly) offending short link is optional. You can control this on the Account tab at explore.garmin.com. Lower right corner. To omit the link, UNcheck the box for "Include a link to an online map...". The presence/absence of the map link does not affect the recipient's ability to reply. It only affects the ability of the recipient to visualize the location from which the message was sent.

twolpert said:

Garmin proactively works to resolve issues like this.

Can't be much "proactive" work done by Garmin when main mobile operators in large countries have no delivery of SMS. 

Good morning. As we mentioned before, we have had this problem for more than two years in Argentina. I opened hundreds of tickets with garmin and they never, ever wanted or bothered to fix the problem.
As a member of the forum said above, obviously for garmin we are not a significant market and they are interested in fixing the problem.
And although the problem may be the filtering of SMS by the operators, it is Garmin's responsibility to solve it since they are the ones who sell you a device saying that it has the ability to send and receive SMS.
But clarify in which countries it does not work before selling it, because otherwise it is clearly a scam

Turning off inclusion of the short link solves the problem. Granted you should not have to do that. But if you want an immediate solution, that is it.

Garmin can see all inReach traffic, every single text message and its SMS recipient. 

It would not take long for Garmin to go over those countries and mobile carriers to resolve any delivery conflict.

Clearly this has not been done or followed up on. 

Including device location is an integral part of inReach communication. 

Hello, friend.
No, that doesn't work in Argentina either.
We already talked about it in this same Thread. We tried a thousand different ways and they do not arrive or are received.
The problem started at the end of 2019 before it worked fine.

There are other ways to include the location in the SMS. You can include it as text (rather than a short link to the map). Most recipients won't know what to do with the lat/lon, though.

Cell provider failure to FIX the problem is not the same as as Garmin failing to NOTIFY the provider. None of us can tell from the outside where the process failed. Might be that Garmin does not care. Argentina probably is a small fraction of the Garmin iR market. Might be that the cell provider does not care. Garmin iR traffic probably is a tiny, tiny fraction of SMS traffic in the country. Or it might simply be that it takes a willing provider a long time to actually fix it.

From past experience, Garmin does follow up - at least with US providers. And US providers do rectify the problem. OTOH, it has been a while since we have seen this problem with a US provider.

FWIW, removing the short link (via the Account tab at explore.garmin.com) is the workaround that Garmin recommends when this problem occurs. Getting the SMS without the link is preferable to NOT getting the SMS at all.

The problem is that most inReach users do not read this forum or know about the issue of failed delivery. Experience and knowledge shared here is of no use to them.

They send a text message and think it is jolly well received by recipient.

Unless the user has previously done SMS message testing in the same environment, he/she has no way of being aware of this (serious) communications problem, nor be able to apply a workaround in-field.

Device testing is recommended by Garmin, text message delivery to SMS is not. People expect this service to work as promoted.

Though SMS messaging is a marketed and sold feature of inReach, Garmin has clearly relinquished all responsibility in their Service Terms.