SMS take hours until it arrives at my FP2

My problem: Sms take hours, sometimes days until arrival at my phone. To find out I tried an old dumb phone with my SIM card (Lidl at Vodafone 3G net) and it worked with this phone straightaway. I also tried a different sms app, same issue as before.
Any idea what could be wrong with my FP2 (open OS 16.11.0)?

Try the following: Go to Settings / …more / Mobile Networks / Preferred Network Type and choose “2G only”. If this solves the problem then your mobile phone provider (Vodafone 3G ?) has a problem with SMS delivery over 3G / UMTS and you should call them. The reason why your “dumb phone” does the job is that it very likely only offers 2G connectivity.
This problem is not Fairphone specific and has happened with other providers before - they just need some feedback :slight_smile:

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Thank you, M_Dammer, your explanation sounds to me quite reasonable. So I will try to get it with 2G. And I will report here.
The only thing is, that I could not find any other similar case here at the forum, and I am probably not the only one who uses a Lidl-sim with Vodafone-3G-net. Before this sim I used an original Vodafone one with an additional 4G net, and probably I did have the same problem already at that time. I could not do any online banking, because I didn’t get the iTAN number in time. :flushed: So I keep my old dumb phone, just in case!

Yes, I have found out: sms at 2G net with Lidl sim card works, 3G net doesn’t. Exactly as M-Dammer has said. Will ask the Lidl people on that.

Now I have talked to Lidl Connect.They will send me a new SIM card, hoping to solve the problem this way.

Good luck @Heiner, good to hear that the cause of the problem was found. I hope the new SIM card solves the problem. If you check the internet for things like “delayed sms” you will find that you are not alone. Should the SIM card not solve the problem, then you could check if you get better 3G / 4G SMS delivery times when you are in a different area (different mobile tower coverage). Good Luck :+1:

I have had these delays at different places within my home country ‘Schleswig-Holstein’. The problem might be, that the Lidle customers use the Vodafone net without G4. So I should change the provider in case it doesn’t work with the new SIM.

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I am not sure if that could be the problem: As long as you get a voice connection you have a working mobile network connection and at least with Vodafone UK I can see that although my FP2 contract includes 4G it falls back through the whole G-Ladder (4G, H+, H, E, G).

‘Schleswig-Holstein’ => Kiel was my home town for 16 years before moving to Scotland.

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