Originally Posted By: DeathtoToasters
I tried that also, always said message failed. I believe the reason is that it used the data side of the network. If it is roaming, the data side most likely won't work well if at all.


Text messaging (SMS) is sent on the control channel on the voice side of things. SMS does not rely on a data connection. After all, SMS texting was around long before data was. SMS in much more reliable than data is.

As RAS indicated an SMS text message can still be sent even when a voice connection can't be maintained since it just needs a brief connection on the control channel. That still doesn't mean that just because you get a signal it'll be enough to send the message. Every phone I've seen will try to send it only once and will simply tell you it failed. I'd like to see an option to keep retrying in case I go into enough coverage to send it so I don't have to manually keep retrying. Maybe there's a phone that will do this?