I am posting this here because this is a major issue I have had. I live in a rural area and have sporadic reception in my house, and work in a large building with dead spots. When I am in areas without reception and a friend texts me, I will not receive it. When I get reception again a few minutes later, my texts will not go through automatically.

From what I understand, the way SMS messages work they will send immediately, and if they do not go through they will piggyback on a different connection. So Verizon will not try resending them to you until it is good and ready, even if you have had reception since then. In my case today I got 3 texts 80 minutes late.I called Verizon tech support earlier with this problem and after describing to him everything, his only solution was to always leave my droid by a window and never have it near me.

If I wanted a phone to never have around me I would not have purchased my shiny droid, so with a little screwing around I found a fix for this problem:

You can fix this very simply by making a phone call and connecting through the network that way. When you connect again through a phone call, all of your missed texts will go through!



I set a shortcut for this on my homescreen with these simple steps.

1.) Added an entry in my phonebook called 'Get Texts!' and set the number as *228. (This number is good to call every month or so to update reception, but you can back out of the call immediately as well.)

2.)Went to my homescreen and held down on an empty space.

3.)Clicked shortcuts and scrolled down to select 'Direct Dial'.

4.)Scrolled through my phonebook to the 'Get Texts!' entry and selected it.



Voila! Now I have an icon beside my messaging icon that I can press when I feel like I have been missing texts and I can retrieve them manually once I have a signal again. Quick and easy.

I hope this helps somebody that has the same problem as me, Verizon didn't seem to understand it very well.

 

I have considered a signal repeater or booster, but I can't really afford one for my home. I get reception fine outside but of course nobody texts you while you are outdoors.

I work in a hospital and half the time I am on the ground floor where the walls are too thick for any reception at all, and elevators literally chomp out your signal as the doors close. I don't mind getting texts a little late, as I'm not really supposed to be chatting on my cell at work anyway but an hour or more late is ridiculous and makes most text messages pointless.

 

Wow, at $190 it is ALMOST worth it for me, but if I spent that much on an accessory like that I would have to know it would last me through future phones and would work everywhere in my house. Reception is fine if I am outdoors or standing right beside a window but I'm never just WAITING for a text so it does me no good. I hate answering the phone and knowing the conversation will start with 20 seconds of Hello? Hey! Hello? Can you hear me? -click-
I always have to get up and quit what I'm doing and hope the call was worth going outside for.