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SMS Text to BT landline

  • 11 November 2018
  • 59 replies
  • 5116 views

Userlevel 2
I can text from mobile to mobile ok and from BT landline to mobile. But if I text my landline from my mobile it is always being delivered via voicemail not text.
Has anyone else had the same problem?

Or is anyone out there using BT text and it works fine for them?
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Best answer by Mohammed 21 March 2019, 13:38

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59 replies

Userlevel 2
I'm getting there I think. After Three denying it's them and BT doing the same, I have managed to have a sensible chat with the support team at AQL.
From what I can gether, companies can subscribe to AQL telephony services and they do routing and the like. The 03333440000 number is theirs - so it seems that the 'voice' message is coming from them.
Their initial take was that the interface first checks with the destination number provider to see if the number can handle text and if it can't delivers it as voice. The only snag there is that that can only be true if the check for Three sourced texts is getting a difference response from BT than other networks - as the other networks that I have tried (EE, Vodaphone) come through as text perfectly ok. So the support team up there are still looking into it.
To be honest I'm just amazed that it has taken a lay person like me to do this. Surely either BT/Three or ID could have identified how the messages get delivered and worked out who is at fault between them - rather than all denying it's them.

I still don't know who is contracting AQL services though - whether that is BT or Three. Obviously the smart guess would be that it's Three. Also, AQL haven't said as yet as whether the message enters their system with 03333440000 as the delivery mechanism (ie that is decided before it reaches them) or whether they are deciding that. Should be easy to spot though as they could see my landline number in their system with the text messages I sent from my ID phone yesterday. So hopefully it shouldn't take too long to identify who is the culprit. Either that, or suddenly it will all start working correctly miraculously and no one will still admit to the fault! Cynic? Moi?
Userlevel 2
Taking a bit longer than I thought. AQL are saying that they are just being used for delivery and that the decision to use voice has already been made. I am just getting their confirmation of that. They have provided me with the very simple attached flow chart. Still, the snag is what does 'originator' in this case mean? Again, the smart bet would be Three, but it is still possible that Three delivered to BT and BT decided to deliver via voice and use AQL for that service. So from AQL's perspective the originator is BT... Pain in the bum. I can't as yet get a definitive 'we are providing the delivery contract for blah and they have passed us your data...' from AQL

Userlevel 2
@Mohammed
I have just received 4 test text messages.
Tests 1-3 came through as text (I can provide mobile numbers if you need)
Test 4 came through from AQL on 03333440000 as speech
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
Hello @steveTu,

Thanks for confirming that.
If we need the mobile number, we will request this later.

Can you confirm for us the times they were received?

Like so:
Test 1 - Text - TIME
Test 2 - Text - TIME
Test 3 - Text - TIME
Test 4 - SPEECH - TIME

Once we have this information, we will continue to investigate with Three UK.

Mohammed
Userlevel 2
@Mohammed
The receipt times:
Test1 - 16:13
Test2 - 16:13
Test3 - 16:14

Test4 - 16:15
Userlevel 6
Badge +10
Hi @steveTu,

Thank you for that information. We are liaising with Three for this issue and we will have it further investigated and we'll be back in touch soon.

Ryan
Userlevel 4
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Hi @steveTu

Mohammed isn't in today for me to poke him for an update on this, though I know he is still on the case with this one.

Expect to hear more from him by Monday/ Tuesday of next week here.
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
Hello @steveTu,

I can only but apologise that the matter has been going on for so long. We have been liaising with Three UK regarding this as they are the ones who would arrange for the text to be sent as a text rather than speech. The tests we've completed so far have been on behalf of Three UK so they can analyse the results of these as they continue to work on the issue. We can't provide specifics for what you have requested regarding AQL, as it currently sits with the Three UK's Team for testing and is outside of our TechTeam.

Once we have a response (and fingers crossed a fix for the issue) from Three UK, we'll be sure to provide this update to you here.

Mohammed
Userlevel 2
@Ryan @Mohammed
Just received another 'Test' message - it came through as voice from 03333440000 at 10:04.
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
Hello @steveTu,

Thanks for confirming that.

We are still looking into this and I will pass on the update to the Team. We'll use this in our ongoing investigation with Three to continue with the progress on this investigations. Thank you for your continued patience and apologies for the time it's taken thus far to get a resolution. We can assure you that we're working with Three UK to resolve this as soon as possible.

Mohammed
Userlevel 2
@Ryan @Mohammed
I'm not sure that I follow the complexity of the issue. Surely it is possible to trace a text (and thereby initially prove beyond a doubt that it is Three perfoming the check?)? And if the AQL flowchart is to be believed (and so far no reason why not), then some interface code is performing a check to see if my landline is text enabled. Isn't then a simple case of following how that interface performs that check? I doubt if the interface is physically checking my landline phone - so presumably there's a database somewhere that holds the fact that my landline is text enabled - and given that other networks are managing texts to my landline ok - isn't it likely that Three have either a simple bug in that interface OR they're using the wrong database to validate against?
Userlevel 6
Badge +10
Hi @SteveTu

The review of your issue is currently with Three. We are trying to find out as much information as possible for you before we come back to you with an answer. We believe there may be an issue with how Three process these messages but we do not want to confirm this until we have a definitive answer.

We are hoping Three can fix this issue and so that is why we are arranging subsequent test messages that may come to you. Once we have a response from them we will update you.

Ryan
Userlevel 2
@Ryan @Mohammed

I sincerely appreciate that you're trying to help.
My frustration stems from the fact that this issue is heading towards being 4 months old and up until 20+ days ago, iD and Three denied all responsibility. I still haven't seen anywhere here where iD (Three) have actually said it is them passing the text to AQL. So have Three now acknowledged that it is them passing the text to AQL for delivery as speech?
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
@Ryan @Mohammed

I sincerely appreciate that you're trying to help.
My frustration stems from the fact that this issue is heading towards being 4 months old and up until 20+ days ago, iD and Three denied all responsibility. I still haven't seen anywhere here where iD (Three) have actually said it is them passing the text to AQL. So have Three now acknowledged that it is them passing the text to AQL for delivery as speech?


Hey @steveTu,

We appreciate that you'd like an answer to whether it's Three UK passing the text to AQL this way, however, we're still working with Three UK to get to the bottom of this. Once we have any further information, we will let you know here.

We apologise for the time taken thus far and appreciate your co-operation here.

Mohammed
Userlevel 2
@Phil
OK - asked for a dealock letter from ID - nothing so far.

This is two months in - for something that should have taken a few minutes to resolve - and worst of all, not one of the parties involved has provided proof of what they're saying - ALL the parties simply point at the others and say '... it's their fault...' - but with nothing to back up what they're saying.

I have tried ID. I have tried via AQL. I have tried with Three direct and then via Resolva. I have tried BT direct. I have tried BT via forums.

I have now escalated this to the Ombudsman - so it's now a case of waiting to see what they can do.

Isn't there anyone who actually does support anymore? Has it all become customer self help forums, Tweets and Facebook nonsense without any real substance?
Userlevel 2
@Mohammed @Ryan

Any update on this?
Userlevel 2
@Ryan @Mohammed

The 'test texts' were a month ago. This issue is now circa 4 months old.

What is happening?
Userlevel 7
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@Mohammed @Ryan

Any update on this?


Hello @SteveTu

We have not forgotten about you and thank you for your patience while we look into this for you. We are currently liaising with Three to try and get a final answer for you in relation as to why this is happening. We will come back to you as soon as we have a response.

Many thanks
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
Hello @steveTu,

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Three UK have now concluded their investigation on the matter.

The updated response we received on their findings were:

"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."



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.

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.

We don't have any further information we can provide on this and if you do have any further technical queries, we'd recommend contacting Three UK directly for this as they have confirmed it is from their end and not iD Mobile's fault.

Whilst I can understand that this may not resolve the actual issue you're facing (by enabling the text-text you require), we do feel this does answer the original post you raised.

We are therefore marking this topic as resolved.

Mohammed
Userlevel 2
@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.
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
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
Userlevel 2
@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?
Userlevel 7
Badge +10
@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
Userlevel 2
@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?
Userlevel 2
Badge +6
Hi SteveTu, in this circumstance, it appears that we're not aware that the number you are sending to is capable of receiving text messages but the other networks are.
We'll need to raise this with the Tech Team that this issue is not resolved.
-Phil

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