atw: Gr8 M8 - my painful memory

Or perhaps we could just call. :)

Everytime I read this 'Gr8 M8' thread my thumbs twinge painfully from the
memory of the small number of times that I have actually had my glasses
available and then sent an SMS message in response to one of my kids sending
me one.

When I complain to them about ringing, they say it's cheaper but I point out
the following occasion:

- My son had just started working for the same company I was contracting to
at the time.
- I rang to find out where he was located so that I could visit him because
I had some free time and wanted to see his new workstation etc. but his
mobile phone didn't answer.
- He sent me an SMS message saying "wot" (I assumed he was saying in a very
polite way, "Yes oh great father of mine, how can I be of service to you".
- I sent a message back saying "where ru" (I was trying to be trendy).
- He came back with "busy now. call u l8tr" or such.
- I replied "but where ru!!!"
- He came back with "@work"
- I replied with "where the f ru @fn work"
- He replied with "o sry. 3rd flr"

In exasperation I went to the 3rd floor but couldn't find him. I tried
ringing again but there was no answer and my son sent another SMS message.

- "wot"
- "where on the 3rd flr r u"
- "nth side undr flag"

I went to the north side of the floor but there was no flag and no son.
There were plenty of other flags around (this is a theme on the floor) but
not on the north side and a walk around the floor didn't help. I just
couldn't see him anywhere.

- "where the f ru! No flag nth side"
- "o sry. sth side"

I looked under all the south-side flags and there he was, hidden behind a
pillar talking to his trainer.

We had a brief talk and organised lunch and I vowed I would NEVER send an
SMS message again.

At lunch I pointed out it had cost him 7 phone calls just to get me angry
with him. He said his plan gave him 'X' amount for free.

<sigh>

I have since sent SMS messages of course, because I have two other kids who
also don't know any better and assume I have my glasses with me at all
times.

Bloody kids.

:)

BTW... That story is 100% true. The message contents may not have been 100%
the same but they would be pretty close (there were probably more f's at the
time) and my thumbs still cramp up at the memory. 

Cheers,

Bruce








-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
pfagan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, 17 April 2008 10:20 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Great Mate vs Gr8 M8

Brian A Clarke wrote:

"You may think you can send unabbreviated SMSs, but some ISPs will truncate
your sent message without advising you. You think your receiving end has
received all your transmitted message - but it hasn't. This leads to
frustration."


Brian there are character limits, but on a good interface like the one
Exetel offer, you can keep track of what they will send. When I have
typed:

Hi Brian thought I'd text ya dude

Counters below the text entry box read:

Characters used: 33.
Characters left: 579.

Exetel have a 612 character limit.

The IT consultant to my business has used and recommends net2mobile -
http://www.net2mobile.com.au/ - which has a similar character counting
mechanism but a lower limit of 160 char.

So it ain't that hard M8

From the Exetel FAQ:

How big is one SMS message?

One message is 160 characters in length.

What happens when I go over 160 characters?

The message shall still be sent through as one message but charges will be
multiplied by each 160 set of characters.

What is the maximum amount of messages that I can send?

The maximum amount of messages that can be sent is 4 with a maximum of 612
characters.


It is possible that a long message could get cropped by the receiving telco.
But in any case I would respectfully suggest that SMS was never intended for
messages > 100 char - remember that SMS is an abbreviation of Short Message
Service.

Peter Fagan
IntraDoc Pty Ltd


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