SMS Text to BT landline

@Mohammed
But what you, and Three appear to be saying is completely at odds with their web site - http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=callsemails,varset_subcat=3788,Case=obj(3173)

They state there that texts will be delivered to landlines as text if the landline is text enabled, which mine is. On top of that, Three have stated for 4 months that they don't deal with AQL.

Totally confused still.

Hello @steveTu,

Whilst I can completely understand your confusion here, unfortunately, this is the information that Three UK have provided to us after concluding their investigation on the matter. As we (iD Mobile) are a separate company to Three UK, we have no insight to their processes nor have control of the information found on their website. We can only recommend contacting Three UK for any further queries relating to this.

If you have any other queries relating to your account coverage etc, we'd be happy to assist you with this. However, if it's relating to the texting landlines, we're not able to take this further due to it being Three UK who's systems do not appear to support this for you and this is out of our control.

We'll flag the website showing this to Three UK so they're made aware of this.

Mohammed

@Mohammed

I can't contact Three directly as their phone system doesn't recognise my phone as being 'theirs' - and I contract their services through you. I don't have a Three account.
I did raise an issue through Resolver (that Three subscribe to to resolve disputes) with Three - but they denied all knowledge there that it was them causing the problem AND denied all knowledge of AQL. If you read this thread here from the beginning - even your own call centre staff contacted Three support, who, after performing their investigations at that time (which also included test texts) denied it was anything to do with them.
I think my issue at this stage (4 months of complete denial) is that I don't know what to believe.

If the 'investigations' that occurred earlier based on my online chats, calls to your call centre AND the Resolver complaint resulted in Three's absolute denial of their involvement in the delivery of text as speech (and involvement with AQL), then I find it hard to believe now that it's something out of their control. How on earth do I know that it's just not something they're trying to duck - ie they just can't be bothered to fix?

steveTu wrote:

@Mohammed

I can't contact Three directly as their phone system doesn't recognise my phone as being 'theirs' - and I contract their services through you. I don't have a Three account.
I did raise an issue through Resolver (that Three subscribe to to resolve disputes) with Three - but they denied all knowledge there that it was them causing the problem AND denied all knowledge of AQL. If you read this thread here from the beginning - even your own call centre staff contacted Three support, who, after performing their investigations at that time (which also included test texts) denied it was anything to do with them.
I think my issue at this stage (4 months of complete denial) is that I don't know what to believe.

If the 'investigations' that occurred earlier based on my online chats, calls to your call centre AND the Resolver complaint resulted in Three's absolute denial of their involvement in the delivery of text as speech (and involvement with AQL), then I find it hard to believe now that it's something out of their control. How on earth do I know that it's just not something they're trying to duck - ie they just can't be bothered to fix?

Hello @steveTu,

I can completely understand your frustration here, however, we do not have control of Three UK's website or their systems to provide any further information on this. We've liaised directly with Three UK regarding the issue and they have completed all necessary tests for this. Their response confirmed that they were not able to support this feature. I can only apologise that we could not offer a more favourable response here.

Mohammed

@Mohammed

I fully understand that it's not your direct problem and that you contract services from Three in the same way that I contract services from you.
What I'm finding difficult to swallow is the sudden turn around. As I said before - read back over this thread and you'll see that Three performed tests before. The results from those tests showed to Three that the delivery as speech was nothing to do with them - or at least that is what I was being told (for months).
I did contact Three directly - but only via Resolver - and they were adamant that it was nothing to do with them. That direct contact via Resolver terminated with them still taking the standpoint that it wasn't them and that they don't deal with AQL.
Now it seems that Three do deal with AQL and send texts to landline as voice as a matter of course. AND their systems don't allow them to change this delivery mechanism.
My point that I'm still trying to make, is if for months Three denied all knowledge, how on earth do I know now that their '...we can't change our systems...' is now true? Why can't they deliver text as text as other mobile and landline networks do?

Hello @steveTu,

We can't speak for the information that was provided to you by Three UK Via Resolver and whether or not you were dismissed very quickly there without any actual investigation taking place. We can however, confirm that we raised this directly with the relevant people within Three UK internally and this was investigated by the Three UK Technical Team, something that may not have been done before if this wasn't escalated. The information we were provided is the information we have provided to you above. We can only but apologise that the response here isn't as favourable as you may have expected.

Mohammed

@Mohammed

Again I repeat that I 'believe' that this is not your direct problem.
But I still think you're missing my point.
Let's go back 5 months. I have the issue and I don't know who is at fault. So I initially contact BT - BT 'investigate' over two or three weeks and then come back to me and tell me it was likely due to my handset (landline) and that I should chase Panasonic.

Were they correct? Should I have just stopped asking?

I chased Panasonic and they said it definitely wasn't the handset. So, I go back to BT and they insist it's not their fault. After a few weeks their 'investigation' then showed it wasn't their issue and that Three contracted AQL in 2009.

Were they correct? Should I have just stopped asking at this point?

Meanwhile - and in parallel - I was asking ID. They tell me categorically that they're passing the issue onto Three's technical people and that Three are saying that it's not them. Three do not deal with AQL.

Were they correct? Should I have just stopped asking at that point?

Meanwhile - and in parallel - I start a Resolver issue against Three (as I can't contact them directly as I don't have a Three phone/contract). They tell me categorically that they don't deal with AQL.

Were they correct? Should I have just stopped at that point?

You, after dealing with Three and Three doing 'investigations' say it is Three passing the text to AQL - but that's just how it is and that Three can't alter their systems.

How do I now know that they're correct? Should I stop at this point?

So far I have had months of ALL the parties (BT, ID and Three) just telling me blatant untruths - simply because it appears that they couldn't be bothered to investigate the issue properly. They all just took the simple route and tried to blag the issue.

Given that all other mobile networks appear to handle the issue of mobile-to-landline-texting perfectly ok, why should I actually believe that it's beyond the wit of man for Three to do the same? - especially as Three themselves state on their web pages that they handle mobile-to-landline texts ok.

So I ask again - why can't Three deliver the mobile text as text to a BT landline?

The only people who have come out of this with any credibility at all appear to be AQL. At least they investigated the issue as soon as it was raised with them and proved the situation within half an hour. No blagging - no blaming others (well, not without due cause) and no equivocation.

Hello @steveTu,

I can understand that the journey you've faced here hasn't been the easiest.

I can only advise the information that we have provided for you here.

We raised this directly to our Technical Team and they contacted Three internally to speak to their Technical Team.

The response we have received from their Team advises:

"The SMS Delivery service which we offer supports delivery to landlines via our Text-to-Speech platform. The only exception is P2A SMS which terminates on AQL-enabled SMS landline numbers. Message termination (in SMS form) to landlines is not supported for any other destinations."

This was the response directly from their team.

To summarise, Three UK have confirmed they cannot support the delivery of a text to text on landlines and it is currently being delivered as text-to-speech. This is a limitation with their current systems. We've requested Three UK to test multiple ways to see if they can enable this service in the future, however, as of now, they have advised us they are unable to fix the issue with their current systems.

This is Three UK confirming that they are not able to send the texts as SMS.

Now that we have raised the issue to Three UK, we hope that they can fix/enable this in the future, however, as of right now they are unable to offer this service.

This is the hope that Three UK are now able to work on this and can provide this as a feature in the future.

However, as of right now, this is not supported.

The answer to:

So I ask again - why can't Three deliver the mobile text as text to a BT landline?

is as above:

"The SMS Delivery service which we offer supports delivery to landlines via our Text-to-Speech platform. The only exception is P2A SMS which terminates on AQL-enabled SMS landline numbers. Message termination (in SMS form) to landlines is not supported for any other destinations."

Mohammed