I’m based in the UK and am using the Features of ParentShield SIM for Children roaming contract that allows a phone to roam on all networks to increase network coverage as the phone is for my child. However, when sending plain SMS text messages, they intermittently get the “Failed to send!” message, despite receiving text messages from the same contact ok. They are using MuditaOS K 1.1.1 - I didn’t upgrade as some users have been reporting issues sending text messages with the latest version. I’m trying to establish whether this is an issue with the particular combination of the parentshield roaming network and this phone or whether other users are experiencing similar issues when sending plain SMS text messages? I’m considering buying the device for my other child, but this issue would be a showstopper? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Mudita Kompakt is lacking the Manual Network Selection dialog (also switching between manual and auto). So not sure how they’re choosing the automatic network underneath that. This is supposed to be fixed in the next Update in September according to the Update Roadmap.
I can see your ParentShield virtual network claims that it roams on all possible networks, but maybe the one that is automatically getting connected is “forbidding” you to access their network properly.
This is just a theory though, because I have no experience with such networks as ParentShield.
But I remembered that in Western Balkans there’s “Roaming-free for all countries” but in my experience when you travel another country you still need to select a particular network that is a partner of your Carrier for the phone/data/sms to work. Even though your phone might connect to all networks in the B country, some of them will still reject you.
And at the moment you can’t do manual selection until Mudita updates the dialog for network selection.
This did cross my mind, thanks for the info on network selection. I’ve had the opportunity to test this a bit more extensively today. Some target numbers work fine - eg. when I try to text my own mobile (on Vodafone) from my child’s mobile it works fine, same with a couple of other numbers, but there are certain target numbers that consistently get “Failed to send!”. I’m pretty sure the phone is not changing networks in between messages! Could there be an issue with roaming agreements between different combinations of source/target network? I’ve tried contacting ParentShield who’ve said there should be no problems texting UK networks.
Thanks for your reply. However this confuses me a bit more!
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I have mobile data (and roaming) enabled in the top picture, so the ‘MMS Messages’ radio button is not visible. The bottom screen (accessed from within SMS → Settings) is how I already have it configured.
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Should this be required for sending plain SMS plains (eg. not picture messages)? I know ParentShield network blocks MMS messages (for obvious reasons), but it allows SMS messages. Are SMS messages dependent on MMS settings?
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Sending SMS messages works reliably for some target numbers but not others (with the device configured and connected in exactly the same way in between sending to different numbers - eg. no changes in between success and failure except different target number).
I’ve investigated further and it appears my daughter had entered one of the numbers that was failing all the time incorrectly eg. as +44 0 77… instead of +44 77… so user error apologies! 
However, this doesn’t explain why another target number was failing intermittently. I’ll report back if I see any further errors.
@kefa Thanks for the feedback.
There are a few things that could be happening:
Please make sure your APN settings are properly configured for your network. If you are unable to change them, that’s something that should be taken up with the network provider.
Another thing to consider- you mentioned that this network provider BLOCKS MMS messages. Here’s the thing- SMS texts typically have 160 characters per message & longer texts might be converted into MMS messages.
Although 160 characters is standard GSM encoding, it can go down to 70 if you’re using special characters like emojis.
So, a message like: “I’ll be late” should come through just fine. BUT something like this (with EMOJIS) might not come through if MMS are blocked.
I am meeting some friends at a restaurant in Warsaw at 7PM. 
Would you care to join us? 
I’ve done more digging and I can reproduce the issue on separate Kompakt handsets both using the parentShield network (which blocks MMS messages).
I can send SMS messages up to exactly 130 characters (no emojis). 131 or longer and I get the message “Failed to send”. However, I can receive arbitrary messages way in excess of 130 chars.
parentshield insist that their network allows SMS to be concatenated up to 1000-2000 chars and they have no apparent issues with other more common android/ios handsets.
is the kompakt somehow converting all messages longer than 130 char to MMS (which would then be blocked by the network)?
Hmmm that’s interesting. I will ask our team about this because from what I know, SMS (by definition mean SHORT message Service) & the 160-character limit is the standard for a single SMS message using the GSM-7 character set. Messages containing Unicode characters, such as emojis or non-Latin letters, are limited to 70 characters per message. When a message exceeds these limits, it is split into multiple segments (concatenated messages), with each segment having a slightly lower character count.