Can you say what this means please?
For example, this morning, when I send an iMessage to my wifeās android phone I get a notification saying the message failed to send, but the message does in fact go straight through, and she can reply no problem.
But her reply is shown on the conversation immediately before my message, which is confusing because one would expect a reply to appear in the thread of conversation after the original message.
And the same is happening with my sonās iPhone.
In general, I think ācarrier settingsā are pushed from your carrier (O2) to update services on your device (iPhone). (Edit: Iāve had requests to allow Carrier Settings Updates several times from my provider in Canada, but none that I can recall from here in Germanyā¦ ymmv) While I was poking around on the forum, several people mentioned that SMS over WiFi started working after they received such an update ā¦ hereās one from community.o2.co.uk in April 2022
I am the user of an iPhone SE (Mk 1). Thanks to the post by BrianMattey, I was prompted to check if SMSoWiFi was working for me and was surprised to find that it is!
Unlike BrianMattey, I did not receive any notification of a Carrier Settings update on the phone ā most of the info I could find suggests that you should get a pop-up asking your permission to install an update ā so I am guessing that any Carrier Settings update may have been installed as part of the recent iOS update to version 15.4.1.
If I navigate to Settings > General > About and scroll down to āNetwork Providerā, it shows the information āO2 50.0ā. If I then tap on āNetwork Providerā, it toggles to show āIMS Status Voice & SMSā. Unfortunately, I have no record of what these entries may have shown before finding SMSoWiFi to be working.
Then on the same thread a follow up message from another user a couple of weeks later:
Works as of this morning, iPhone 12 Pro
network O2 Wi-Fi calling
network provider 02 50.0
But one of the Guru forum members says:
Assuming you are using the latest iOS version it should be working now.
So I donāt really know for sureā¦ it just seems like something to check into? Since some people also mention asking O2 to enable this, then having some success, perhaps you can check which version of carrier services you have on your phone and ask for an update to the latest version?
Iām not an expert on this, but it definitely has the sort of ārandom availabilityā of a service-level update having been applied or not. The intensity of comments that āit works fine on recent iPhones that have the latest iOS installedā seems to point to something buried in device settings and/or carrier settings.
I hope this is a bit clearer?!?
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As far as Iām aware there is no other āSMS Appā on iPhones.
SMS text messages are only sent / received / shown in the iMessage app. They are seen with green text bubbles and are always used when messaging non-iPhone users. In general, they are sent over cellular dataā¦ with the new implementation of SMS via VOIP (or SMS over WiFi if you prefer) being the subject of interest here!
The blue text bubbles indicate that the message was sent over the Apple infrastructure (ie using data and your internet connection) to another iPhone. The iMessage app shows both in one place, but they are very distinct protocols for sending messages.
As far as I know, these blue messages are not ever āseenā and are definitely not āmanagedā by your cellular carrier. This was first introduced as āprivate messagingā between BlackBerry handsets - with no archival record of your text maintained in the carrier logs.
The WhatsApp and (much preferable!!) Signal app do the same sort of thing, providing end-to-end encrypted messages over the internet while using your mobile phone number as the (application specific) target destinationā¦ with Signal, for example, you can leave your original home mobile number as your address and receive messages even if you are travelling and using a local SIM card for cellular data services - with the notable limitation that you can only message others who have signed up for Signal (or WhatsAppā¦ or own an iPhone) Apologies for thread driftā¦ but this is the sort of āreach me on one address no matter where I happen to be physically or which channel I happen to be looking atā that I was after for SMS messaging that is, for example, built right into email.
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Final thanks to everyone who has helped me get these five O2 contracts for peanuts, especially @elverdiblanco
Iāve grabbed bargain there, which will hopefully last for years.
The service people and the system at O2 is surprisingly good at doing anything Iāve asked them to do so far.
The sound quality of Wi-Fi calling is superb, and the network coverage where I live is good.
In the end, all I had to do to sort out the SMS problem is to reset the network settings on all five phones, and correct a mistaken mobile number in the phone settings.
Now all phones are working perfectly, and everything is hunky-dory for the foreseeable future on the mobiles front.
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Iāve certainly not regretted moving to O2 a few months ago. Service around here is pretty rubbish no matter what network youāre on but with WiFi calling thatās no big deal. Iāve even managed to use the Priority app to get early tickets for Roger Waters at the London Palladium 
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