Text messaging a success

Filed under Announcements, Top Stories on Tuesday, January 22, 2008.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The first test of the University of Florida’s new text messaging system was an overall success, although officials are working to determine why some students, faculty and staff did not receive the test message.

Statistics provided by Mobile Campus, the vendor that provides UF’s text messaging service, show that of the 41,383 text messages sent shortly after noon Tuesday, 35,727 reached most cell phones in less than 30 minutes. That’s an 86 percent success rate.

Slightly more than 4,400 messages did not reach recipients, either because the recipient’s mailbox was full, an incorrect phone number was provided or the recipient did not have text service. Another 1,241 attempted messages failed for unknown reasons.

UF administrators are working with Mobile Campus to determine why that happened, as well as to reduce the text message delivery time.

Meanwhile, anyone who did not receive the test message is asked to go to http://www.it.ufl.edu/sms-test/.

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Credits

Contact
Steve Orlando, sfo@ufl.edu, 352-392-0186