Why is my phone so slow at sending and receiving texts?

Question

I have a Virgin Mobile arc. I moved to college (which is in a small town) last week and realized that I get crappy service here. For example, I can't make calls in my dorm room, only texts. I was ok with this, though, I knew I'd learn to adjust, and the texting worked fine. (I text a lot more than call anyway.) Then yesterday, my texts decided to slow down on both sending and receiving. For example, I texted my friend to meet me for breakfast, and by the time I got the reply "Ok, I'm leaving my room now," we were halfway done eating. Throughout the course of the day it got even slower. I texted my roommate at 2:53 PM and she didn't receive it until 4:30 AM this morning. Why is my phone doing this? I've had it over a year and a half and never had problems like this before. Is it too old? Is this a Virgin Mobile thing or do I just need to get a new phone?

Answer 1

Virgin Mobile is having problems with there service right now sorry... I called last night they said it could take up to 24 hours to fix it... So lets hope they fix it as soon as possible!

Answer 2

Hi Becca,



Are you noticing the delayed texts to different numbers or just to your friend and roommate's phone? If everyone you are texting to is a Virgin Mobile phone and they're seeing problems as well, it's likely due to the poor service there. Not only will it affect your phone when you send, but it will also affect the person's phone you are trying to reach because their phone is also trying to get a better signal and often can't. Typically speaking, your phone needs to see a stronger signal from the nearest tower to make a voice call than it does to send a text message, but a lot of times, that signal can even drop lower to make texts difficult to send depending on how many phones are in use trying to reach that same tower.

Answer 3

I'm going through the same thing as you and it also started yesterday.....i was so worried that i would have had to take the phone back to the target i gotten it from but after reading the first comment i think that i would have to wait a little while before i think of doing other things....

Answer 4

Yeah I agree with what's been said so far

Answer 5

thanks for the answers, greatly appreciated!