Some Google Voice users see SMS messages delayed up to hours, mainly w/ Verizon senders

Ben Schoon | Feb 27 2019 - 7:41 am PT

Google Voice has seen better support and updates since its relaunch a couple of years ago, but the service still has its quirks from time to time. Over the past couple of days, it seems many Google Voice users have been seeing their SMS text messages delayed.

Specifically in the past 2-3 days, Voice users have been noting that their SMS messages are delayed in some capacity. I’ve noted this personally on my own device, confirmed it with other users on the service, and a sizeable collection of Google Voice users on Reddit report the same problem.

There’s no clear pattern associated with this issue, but it seems like Google Voice users are seeing delays of around 20-30 minutes when receiving SMS messages. Outgoing messages seem to send and deliver as usual, but incoming messages can be delayed for a few minutes, and in some cases by hours at a time. Personally, I’ve noted delays from 5 minutes all the way up to about 3 hours.

One contributing factor to this is that the messages are primarily going between Google Voice and Verizon users. In our brief testing, we were able to note a delay from a Verizon number, but not from a Project Fi number both to the same Google Voice number. Some users also note that AT&T messages seem to work just fine.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment on the matter, but the company has yet to respond. Presumably, this is something Google and Verizon can fix on their end, but in the meantime, messages are still delayed at random. Hopefully, this is a bug that can be taken care of quickly.