On the night of November 6-7, many people in the United States received text messages that were sent to them on Valentine's Day (February 14) and never received. According to the numerous reports on social networks, the authors of those messages had no idea that they had never been delivered, and had not tried to send them again and after so many months from the first sending. Major US telecom operators have said they are investigating the causes of the technical glitch, but so far there have been no very detailed or convincing explanations.
As the technology site The Verge tells us, the problem has affected both iPhones and Android smartphones, connected to all major US operators such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, and other local telephone companies. It is not clear how many people were involved in the disservice, but in a few hours on Twitter and Facebook, dozens of reports circulated, from users who live in different parts of the United States and who are customers of different telephone operators.
Some reported that they were simply surprised, others pointed to more stressful consequences. One person, for example, explained that she received a Valentine's Day message from the person she was then having an affair with and died some time ago. Another user said she received messages from her best friend, who died recently: “The last few months have not been easy and now that I thought I was better this thing has reopened the wound.”
I just got a text from my bestfriends phone only issue is she's been dead since February
– KuribHoe (@FU_GaryOak) November 7, 2019
One user wrote that she received a message from her sister explaining that their mother was better. However, the SMS dated back to February and had never been sent: their mother had died a few months later, in June. Even a message in which one of the two sisters told the other she wanted to visit her sick mother was only delivered last night, months after it was sent.
A girl wrote that she found herself in a rather embarrassing situation after a text message she sent in February was only now received by her now ex-boyfriend. There was some confusion, which was resolved in a short conversation, with no particular aftermath.
Y'all… my damn phone apparently delivered a text to my ex at 5am this morning that was supposed to be sent in FEBRUARY. The universe wants me to fail
– jamie ✨ (@PBandJamiee) November 7, 2019
For now, operators have not provided many explanations for the delay of months in the delivery of SMS. T-Mobile has generically blamed a “third party provider”, but without giving any indication of the company name and what kind of services it offers. A spokesperson limited himself to saying that T-Mobile: “It is aware of the problem and has solved it”.
Sprint attributed the problem to a “maintenance activity” of the SMS management systems: “The problem was solved not long after it arose. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused “.
Although generic, the explanations confirm that there was a problem and that it involved the main operators. However, it is not yet clear why the misunderstanding concerned the specific SMS sent on Valentine's Day and why these had never been delivered. It is not clear if in the next few hours the operators will provide some more details to explain the story.
