[PacketFence-users] Long wait for guests to receive SMS

[Max McGrath]

Hello -

I've just received a report that a user received a pin code 27 hours after
having registered as a guest. The user tried again on a different day and
it took 8 minutes. We'd like to see the SMS sent in under 2 minutes.

I've received various reports of this in the past, but have never had time
to dig into it. Are other people seeing these types of delays with SMS
messages to guest users?

I feel like I should know this -- but I don't.... Does PacketFence utilize
an SMS Gateway? Or does the system just send an email to the email address
associated with the phone number? Assuming these are two completely
different processes (and I'm not sure that they are), would utilizing an
SMS Gateway be quicker from a text messaging perspective for the users?

Thanks!

Max
--
Max McGrath <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/max-mcgrath/1b/3a6/a21>
Network Administrator
Carthage College
262-551-6666 <(262)%20551-6666>
***@carthage.edu

[Ludovic Marcotte]

Hi Max,

Post by Max McGrath
I've received various reports of this in the past, but have never had
time to dig into it. Are other people seeing these types of delays
with SMS messages to guest users?
I feel like I should know this -- but I don't.... Does PacketFence
utilize an SMS Gateway? Or does the system just send an email to the
email address associated with the phone number? Assuming these are
two completely different processes (and I'm not sure that they are),
would utilizing an SMS Gateway be quicker from a text messaging
perspective for the users?

PacketFence makes use of operators' SMTP-to-SMS gateways. Almost all the
time, it'll work very well but sometimes, these gateway can be
unavailable for a short time, have huge latency and such.

Starting from v6.5, PacketFence also supports Twilio for sending SMS. It
is a paying service from them (but is very reasonably priced) but
somehow guarantees very quick delivery times.

Thanks,