How do I send SMS from UK to Argentina?

[jismo77]

Hi, could you tell me if there is another way of sending an SMS from the UK to Argentina without having to ask an Argentinian to first send me an SMS to generate a number which I can reply to?

My Argentinian friend did the following: 44 for England plus 784308???? (omitting ‘0’ from my number). I received his text message BUT the number that came up on my phone was a UK number, not his own. I was able to reply to his message successfully. Our UK system must have generated him a number especially for SMS.

I can call him (1568539???)from UK to Buenos Aires normally by dialling 0054 11 plus 68539??? omitting the prefix 15 from his mobile number.

Many thanks.

[admin]

Hello,

Texting works the same as dialing so you should be able to text by entering: 00 54 11 ???? ????. One other option and I don’t understand why you haven’t already tried this: if you received a text from this person and you were able to successfully reply, why don’t you open the same message and reply to it once again?

Hope this helps.

Dan

[jismo77]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I have several Argentinian mobile numbers now and didn’t want to have to ring them at great cost to explain that they need to text me first. It would also mean I have to store 2 numbers for each of them. I’ve tried texting using the same number as the calls and it doesn’t work. I wonder if it’s their frequency band or something like their messaging centre works differently to ours in UK. The texts definately leave the UK as I have a tick next to the text as a pose to a cross which I’ve had with other attempts.

Thanks, Jez

[jismo77]

SUCCESS!!!!

I forgot to mention that to call Argentina you need a ‘9’ between the country code and the code(11) for Buenos Aires. Sorry. I removed the ‘9’ and can now send texts to Argentina. You were right 😉 Thanks.

To sum up: CALLING BUENOS AIRES FROM UK 0054 9 11 ???? ???? but omitting the first ’15’of their 10-digit mobile number.

SENDING TEXTS (SMS) FROM UK TO BUENOS AIRES: same as above but remove the ‘9’.
0054 11 ???? ???? (remove prefix ’15’)

HAPPY TEXTING!

[admin]

Thanks for posting the info – I actually wasn’t aware of this detail.

[skyway]

Hi jismo,

Unfortunately, I’m still having the same issue with SMS even when I remove the ‘9’. I get a ‘message not delivered’ every time. It’s a real pain because every SMS I receive from an Argentinian mobile number generates the same +44 number. The most recent SMS then takes preference so that when I send a SMS to another Arg contact, it will go to the wrong person 🙂

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
skyway

[jismo77]

Hi,

My friend seems to have the same problem. I am using a Blackberry Curve 8900 on the O2 network and he’s got an Blackberry 8100 on ‘Orange’. It works on mine.

If you are getting messages with +44 and an English number, your Argentinian friend must’ve sent you a text first (?). You should be able to simply click ‘reply’ as this works for me. However, what is odd is that if I text this friend in particular by using her own mobile number, her reply appears with an English number. Must be something to do with who texts first.

Re: delivery reports. I had a tick next to one of my texts and I know for a fact it didn’t get to Argentina. I rang O2 and they said that the tick only means it’s gone as far as the English network, not Argentinian one.

Jez

[skyway]

Hi,

I just want to give some further updates on my ‘attempts’ to send SMS messages to Argentinian mobile numbers as I’m sure other people out there will run into similar issues.

Firstly, I have never been able to successfully send a SMS to the contact person’s +54 mobile number. I can call the number fine but SMS always fails. I have tried +54 9 (area code) (mobile number without the leading ’15’). I’ve omitted the ‘9’ and tried other combinations also but all fail…

So, in order for any of my Argentinian contacts to get in touch with me, I first ask them to send me a SMS. This is when things get a bit tricky which I will explain as follows:

1) Person A from Argentina sends me a SMS. I receive it successfully but the number it comes from is +447797806021. This appears to me some kind of infamous generic number – many people have encountered it, check this:

https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/447797806021

2) Once I receive the initial SMS, I can then successfully reply via the same +447797806021. My Argentinian contact receives the reply successfully.

3) The problems arise when e.g. Person B from Argentina sends me a SMS. I receive it successfully but from the very same generic +447797806021 number. I can also reply to Person B and they will receive the message.

4) However, I now cannot SMS Person A again until they send me a message again. Person B at this point is at the top of the queue and ‘holds’ the +447797806021 number. If Person A sends me a message, I can then reply to them again.

5) What I’m really trying to say here is that I can only SMS one Argentinian person at any given time from my mobile which is a real pain to be honest…

My workaround is to create a contact number for my Argentinian mobile numbers in Skype and then send them SMSs from there. You enter the contact number as +54 (area code) (mobile number without the leading ’15’). PLEASE NOTE the ‘9’ before the area code is not required in Skype. I can confirm that these messages reach my contacts successfully.

So, it looks like I will be SMS’ing my Argentinian friends via Skype for the immediate future.

The joy of Argentinian mobile networks, eh???

[pol098]

While this is an old thread, this is probably relevant to anyone who comes across it. The number to send an SMS to a mobile in Argentina is the same as the number to call. However, the number displayed on a received message is probably the number to use within Argentina, so a reply to a received message may not work.

The main reason for this post is to say that apparently SMS sent from some, but not all, senders reach a recipient in Argentina. I found that sending SMS from a Vodafone UK mobile to Argentina didn’t work; sending it to exactly the same number from a web service (call 18866.co.uk; no longer available) the message did reach the recipient . So all I can say is try different services and see which work; and don’t rely on a message being delivered. HTH

Added: just tried 9 June 2011, confirm that SMS sent to an Argentine mobile from Vodafone UK fails silently; SMS sent from a computer using VoIPcheap.com software works (sent by holder of paid account). Message sent FROM Argentina comes with wrong number for international dial/SMS reply (9 must be inserted after “54” country code).

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