When deploying an SMS service using an Android phone, we encourage you to follow the recommendations below to make your service as reliable as possible:

Keep phone stationary and secure

In order to maintain reliable internet connectivity, we recommend keeping the Android phone stationary, not carrying it around like a normal mobile phone.

In order to prevent the Android phone from being stolen, it may be a good idea to keep it in a locked office, drawer, or cabinet when unattended.

Keep phone plugged in to electricity

The Telerivet Gateway app works best when the phone is plugged in to electricity. If the electricity goes out, the phone's battery will allow your service to keep working until the electricity comes back online.

Note that if the Android phone's battery is depleted entirely, you may have to manually turn the phone on again once there is electricity.

Some Android phones have an unreliable Wi-Fi connection when the phone is not plugged into electricity. This is why even if the phone's battery is charged, we recommend keeping the phone plugged in.

Disable Battery Optimization (Android 6.0+)

Starting with Android 6.0, Android phones automatically optimize battery life by limiting when apps can wake up. This feature, also known as "Doze", prevents the Telerivet Gateway app from maintaining a reliable connection to Telerivet's server when the phone is running on battery power. To improve reliability while on battery power, disable Battery Optimization for the Telerivet Gateway app:

1. Open the Telerivet Gateway app.
2. Click Phone Settings
3. Click Battery Optimization (then click OK)
4. Change the filter to "All apps"
5. Click the Telerivet Gateway app, then select Don’t optimize and click Done.

Disable Putting Unused Apps to Sleep (Samsung)

Some Samsung Android phones automatically put "unused" apps to sleep, including the Telerivet Gateway app which runs in the background. To allow the Telerivet Gateway app to continue running in the background, you can disable this behavior as follows:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Click Battery and device care
3. Click Battery
4. Click Background usage limits
5. Disable "Put unused apps to sleep" (or add the Telerivet Gateway app and all SMS expansion packs to "Never sleeping apps")

Make sure phone has credit to send SMS

If your Android phone is using prepaid mobile service, make sure to refill the credit before it runs out.

If your Android phone runs out of credit, you will not be able to send SMS messages via Telerivet or use mobile data, although you may be able to receive incoming messages.

If you try to send SMS messages when the phone does not have credit, the message will fail with the error "generic failure".

Set up internet with both Wi-Fi and Mobile Data

We recommend setting up the Android phone to use Wi-Fi whenever possible, since it is typically faster and cheaper.

However, if your Wi-Fi network goes offline (for example during a power outage), the Android phone will need mobile data service in order for the Telerivet Gateway app to work.

Set up your phone with mobile data service, and test that it works by temporarily turning off Wi-Fi on the Android phone.

Disable Chat Services (RCS)

If your Android phone has chat features enabled, and the sender also has an Android phone with chat features enabled, incoming messages may actually be RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages instead of SMS. The Telerivet Gateway app is unable to send or receive RCS messages. To avoid this issue, disable chat features on your Android phone. In the Messages app on your Android phone, click the 3 dots menu, then click "Chat features", then make sure the "Enable chat features" setting is disabled.