Originally Posted By: comms
I am seriously not trying to be contincious here, but can can anyone speak to actually sending a text message in a no service cell area and it getting through. To me this is a urban myth. I am on AT&T and have tried this over 50 times in the last year and it has never worked. Several of these attempts have been while my friends with Sprint & Verizon in the car or onThe trail w/ me have service so I know signal is there for someone but not AT&T.


Hi Comms, you cannot send an SMS on someone else's network. I think there may be some confusion about emergency calls to 911 (in the US). If "any" carrier has network coverage (that is compatible with your phone), then you can make a 911 call ONLY.

The point about SMSs is that it only takes a "millisecond" to transmit, so if your network is congested, or your coverage is marginal, then the SMS may get through where a voice conversation (which lasts much longer) may have difficulty staying established. This is particularly true when we had analogue networks, but can still occur now.

I make the point is saying "compatible with your phone" because there are a few different phone technologies about. In my part of the world we have 3G and GSM. Generally older handsets are GSM only and newer ones are both, but occasionally one is 3G only, so if you gave a GSM only handset and there is 3G coverage, it isn’t going to work !