AIM Forwarding now comes in as Shortmail which is useless

[cmcfarling]

For 6 months I've had my AIM account setup to forward IMs to my mobile phone (Samsung A620) when I'm offline, away,etc. They always came in to the phone as SMS text messages so I could read them right away. As of a week ago, they started coming in as Shortmail messages. Shortmail is pretty much useless on this phone. It takes like 10 times longer just to read a simple message.

I also have my company email forwarded to my_number@messaging.sprintpcs.com. Those message have always come in as text messages and continue to. It's apparently just messages from AIM that now get delivered as Shortmail.

After 3 trouble tickets with Sprint tech support and conversations with 5 techs, I still don't have an answer as to why this started happening. Each one has given me a different reason, and it's apparent that none of them have looked into thoroughly enough to give me a specific answer. The last guys said "I guess that's just how we're routing AIM messages now." Unfortunately it seems impossible to actually talk to the people at Sprint who can really tell what's going on internally.

I'm hoping someone on this forum may have some insight and ideally, a way to make it go back to receiving AIM messages as SMS.

Thanks

[MrTchMan]

For 6 months I've had my AIM account setup to forward IMs to my mobile phone (Samsung A620) when I'm offline, away,etc. They always came in to the phone as SMS text messages so I could read them right away. As of a week ago, they started coming in as Shortmail messages. Shortmail is pretty much useless on this phone. It takes like 10 times longer just to read a simple message.

I also have my company email forwarded to my_number@messaging.sprintpcs.com. Those message have always come in as text messages and continue to. It's apparently just messages from AIM that now get delivered as Shortmail.

After 3 trouble tickets with Sprint tech support and conversations with 5 techs, I still don't have an answer as to why this started happening. Each one has given me a different reason, and it's apparent that none of them have looked into thoroughly enough to give me a specific answer. The last guys said "I guess that's just how we're routing AIM messages now." Unfortunately it seems impossible to actually talk to the people at Sprint who can really tell what's going on internally.

I'm hoping someone on this forum may have some insight and ideally, a way to make it go back to receiving AIM messages as SMS.

Thanks
The A620 is not SMS compatible. You will need to upgrade to a newer phone

[cmcfarling]

The phone is most definitely capable of receiving non-Shortmail text messages. Would those not be considered SMS text messages then?

As I mentioned, messages from AIM used to come in as readable text messages **NOT** Shortmail messages. This just started happening a week ago. Also, anything sent to mynumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com **STILL** comes in as a readable text message and not a Shortmail. So, it's not a phone problem.

[MrTchMan]

The phone is most definitely capable of receiving non-Shortmail text messages. Would those not be considered SMS text messages then?

As I mentioned, messages from AIM used to come in as readable text messages **NOT** Shortmail messages. This just started happening a week ago. Also, anything sent to mynumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com **STILL** comes in as a readable text message and not a Shortmail. So, it's not a phone problem.
Sprint just enabled 2way AIM messaging. Because you can reply now it will come in through Shortmail. You can receive SMS through A620 but not send that is why it has changed. Does that make a little better sense?

[cmcfarling]

Yes, that makes sense. Unbelieveable that no one at Sprint's almost-tech support was able to muster up such a simple answer.

Is it possible to have them change the behavior on a per-user basis do you know? I do not need to be able to reply so one-way messaging is fine with me. Also, I have AIM Mobile (separate app) on my phone if do need to do 2-way messaging.

[MrTchMan]

Quick answer is no. I am not familiar with aim mobile. I would try to upgrade to get the best experience from all these new features

[Rustproof]

when my mobile phone signed onto aim the shortmail problem became apparent. the solution was to sign out of aim from my cell phone then it was back to SMS. i recenty signed on again through the wireless aim tool but now messages are back to shortmail... IM forwarding is annoying at the point of requiring a log on to aol to see the "simple text message"

I tried disabling the forward but im going to deal with it until i can find an answer.

any ideas out there?

[Jade]

Sprint just enabled 2way AIM messaging.

And for that I am grateful. It was so frustrating to get an IM from somebody and then have to open Vision and sign into AIM just to reply to the thing when people I knew on other carriers were able to just reply right there to the text message.

Sorry it's causing problems for some of you, though. I have no idea how to work around that. My old phone used shortmail and it drove me insane. I racked up many wireless web overages with my text-happy tendencies. Now I have unlimited SMS and all is good!

[BrightEyes]

I have the same dilemma as the original poster since i use a vga1000. Im upset about it now but when I upgrade my phone I know i'll be thrilled to be able to reply to my aim messages directly thru sms.

So for now I'll turn off the aol forwarding, and when i upgrade i'll bring it back.