I just wanted to let everyone know that I spent months tracking down contacts using internet searches, press releases and navigating phone system IVR menus to learn the infrastructure of both companies and finally found an executive who contacted an engineer, who called me and who could track down the problem and fix it.
It turns out that Alltel was bought by Verizon, now making it the largest cell provider in the US. Alltel hired Sybase360 as their international inter-provider gateway to handle SMS traffic in and out of the country. Cell-C hired a company called Airwave to install and provide the same service on their end, but I believe they manage it themselves.
Turns out that one of the pieces of infomation in the SMS packet (called SRI) relating to routing was being rejected by either the Sybase or Alltel equipment as formatted by the Airwave equipment. They are still trying to figure it out, but until they get that fixed in a permanent manner, Cell C / Airwave is using the hub route to handle SMS traffic between these two carriers. Go try to SMS you Aunt Sue or Uncle Fred on Alltel in the US today!
Don't you think that one of them ought to pay me a consulting fee for being the first one to be tenacious enough to work my way up the ladder until somebody listened? Somebody is going to make more money sending SMS's now.
F
It turns out that Alltel was bought by Verizon, now making it the largest cell provider in the US. Alltel hired Sybase360 as their international inter-provider gateway to handle SMS traffic in and out of the country. Cell-C hired a company called Airwave to install and provide the same service on their end, but I believe they manage it themselves.
Turns out that one of the pieces of infomation in the SMS packet (called SRI) relating to routing was being rejected by either the Sybase or Alltel equipment as formatted by the Airwave equipment. They are still trying to figure it out, but until they get that fixed in a permanent manner, Cell C / Airwave is using the hub route to handle SMS traffic between these two carriers. Go try to SMS you Aunt Sue or Uncle Fred on Alltel in the US today!
Don't you think that one of them ought to pay me a consulting fee for being the first one to be tenacious enough to work my way up the ladder until somebody listened? Somebody is going to make more money sending SMS's now.
F