Why can't I send large text messages?

Btw, I do send large sms from time to time to various other carriers. And my friends have always gotten them (sometimes broken up).

It isn't just a carrier thing but also the phone they have dealing with it.
That is why SMS stands for short though in the first place. Meant for short messages. Each carrier/phone maker decides how they want to deal with those that try to use the system for more than what it was designed for. There isn't a standard thus not all phones/carriers play together.

Even how short it can be varies as SMS is carried on the "extra space" they have in their packets with the cell tower during normal tower converstations. Each vendor has their own protocols and data they send so each has a different amount of "extra space" in these packets. That is why they are supposed to be "short" (but also why many complain that SMS puts no extra bandwidth since it was null space in a packet already being sent for communication with towers. So them charging for it and trying to say it adds to the network is just a falsehood.)

Message was edited by: DaVBMan

Because unlike us, not everyone has email on their phones. Text messages are usually sent because you can't talk or don't want to talk, but they are meant to be seen right away like a call would, so emails are no good to people who don't have access to their emails 24/7.

Texts are supposed to be short. If your constantly sending long ones why not send an email instead?

Mgarcia016 wrote:
I just figured if I sent more than a certain amount of characters then the messages would seperate into multiple messages but that doesnt happen...

It does, but that is on the carrier and phone. Not on the iPhone. As I mentioned, I have users that don't have iPhones that DO get longer SMS messages with no issue. And they are on different carriers.

It comes down to how the carriers interact and the phone being sent to and how they interact with commands from the carrier they are on.

Once again, there isn't a full standard to SMS (or MMS for that matter) so there will always be differences of how phones and carriers react to different things. This has always been an issue.

I can send large messages with the iPhone 3GS, but sometimes they don't go through. When you send a message above 160 characters, it is supposed to be broken up and sent in chunks to the recipient, but sometimes there are errors. I don't know if this is on the Apple or AT&T side of things though.

I keep saying, I send large SMS's all the time. No issues.
Those users with issues are the people getting them IF they are using a phone on a carrier (could even be AT&T) that the combination of those two things don't let SMS's that get broken up work well.

But I have yet to see any of my friends (with or without iPhones) not get my large SMS's.

The function of splitting an sms that is longer than 160 characters is up to the phone not the carrier. The sms platform was specifically designed to simply drop invalid messages without providing feedback to the sender. too long, missing header, invalid character, whatever; the message gets dropped. Many phones (not just smart phones) are smart enough to split the messages and send 2 "legal" messages but yours is not.

The only problem with this, is that you never know when you are hitting the 160 characters. It would be nice if Apple showed you how many characters you used in the message.

SMS stands for Short Message Service. It sounds like you either need to be more brief or send more than one message if you are going for verbosity.

Before you do that, I would try reinstalling the firmware on your iPhone and see if that is the cause of the problem.

i send sms messages that are sometimes as large as a full-page text doccument (300-400 characters) and have NEVER had a problem with ANY carrier not receiving one of my messages