Is it still the case that neither O2 nor Tesco offer text delivery reports as standard?

I recall there was some way to get them by typing some nos and hash code as a prefix to each text but forget the details?

thanks for any help. I do like to get text delivery report status

*0#

At the start of the message, for example
*0# sorry mum I will be in late.
Then send as normal


The 0 is a zero and not a letter.

thanks for that Stephen

If i remember correctly, the reason that O2/Tesco don't have them as standard is they use out of date systems that don't support the feature!

Assume its the same for GiffGaff and any other O2 reliant MVNO

Hopefully they will keep it that way and the delivery reports will be free unlike other networks.

No, delivery reports are an add-on to GSM, entirely optional. O2 don't use them.

Not sure if that's true. I mean sure, they are not enabled by default but if O2 didn't have the function at all then *0# surely wouldn't work either?

Only Orange contract charges. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange PAYG and Three all have free "proper" ones.

It comes from the late 90s I believe. Some phones back then could not handle the standard delivery report and it caused some issues, so in implementing their SMS network O2 decided to use their own delivery report system of adding a prefix to the message.

Possibly true but turning off delivery reports on a T-Mobile handset and using the same prefix as O2 (*0#) at the beginning of a text yields the same result.

Maybe O2 simply don't want the extra traffic on their already overloaded network?

Your confusing several things. It was O2's 3G network which was overloaded. Delivery reports and text messaging were set up in the 2G GSM days. O2 actually have the best 2G network.
The answer has already been given by several of us, its an add-on that doesn't work 100% and causes problems with some phones, so O2 don't implement it.

I'm not sure I agree it causes problems and if it did, the end user could simply disable them.
No other network seems to feel the need to globally disable delivery reporting so I'm sure it has to be a network level issue rather than a mobile handset one.