Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Monday, September 10, 2012

How to know if (and when) your SMS was delivered

The B-Mobile SMS service has recently been erratic. Incoming international SMSes, like Google Calendar Mobile Alerts and Twitter updates, are sometimes delayed for hours or days. And sometimes they are delivered on time. A recent tweet by @dorji_wangchuk shares the following information:
People using BMobile b mindful of d fact that SMS service is not very prompt. Often the messages are delivered the next day.
What can you do about it? There's no way to expedite delivery of messages - it's up to the mobile operator. You can, however, request a "Delivery Report" to track your outgoing text message. A delivery report is a short message confirming that an SMS was delivered to the recipient's phone. Note that whether the recipient actually opened the message and read it is a different matter.

How do you enable the receipt of delivery reports? Most phones have a setting for it. Read the phone's manual or just fiddle with your phone message settings. For example, in the ultra-basic Nokia phones you can try:
Menu > Messages > Message settings > Delivery Reports > Yes
In the more advanced Symbian phones:
Messaging > Options > Settings > Text message > Receive report > Yes
On Android phones:
Messaging > Menu > Settings > Delivery Reports (Check) 
If you own an "unbroken" iPhone, you're out of luck. The late Steve Jobs decided not to expose this option. Why? I guess we'll never know.
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