We have a number of crew who are unable to send/receive text messages (SMS) since our Balance 305 went in. iPhone messages go through, but Android does not.
We do have P2P/File Sharing blocked, but it’s not clear if that is the culprit.
Anyone know how to allow SMS?
For AT&T phones - AT&T Wi-Fi Calling LAN and VPN Configuration - AT&T Wireless Customer Support
For T-Mobile - NextDNS blocking all text/media messages - Discussions - NextDNS Help Center
All I can confidently say is that the AT&T on iPhone does indeed use 500 and 4500 constantly to make texts and calls work.
yes you may need to toggle the nat-t setting or whatever in advanced settings
I’ve had two yachts report to me that they can NOT send photos, pdf’s, etc. via iphone text messages when they are out of cell range & the only available WAN connection is Starlink.
(Otherwise, the iphone works fine. They can send ‘text only’ messages, iphone calling, apps, browser etc. works correctly.)
The yacht contacting me for support is in Mexico and the Starlink antenna was purchased and activated in the USA.
Please advise on necessary Starlink, Peplink router and iphone configuration to resolve the issue.
After reading up on this is, it appears the new “RCS” texting protocol is causing the issue however, it would be very helpful for Peplink to produce a Starlink config document that addresses this specific issue.
(The only relevant online resource I’ve located is this FB post and it does not provide a solution. Starlink | I have a weird problem with Starlink.. | Facebook)
Notes
TIA
Hey - might be worth checking MTU is set correct? That could cause issues like this on Starlink. MTU should be set to 1500.
Yes, MTU is @ 1500.
Update (10am) = Captain just informed me of two things:
issue is now resolved due to vessel crew member disabling all firewall "content blocking’ settings a few minutes before (9:09am) captain called me this morning @ 9:14am.
I just reviewed the router event log & confirmed the timeline described above.
If captain follows up w/any further important details, I’ll update them here.
I’m hoping he tells me exactly which category was unblocked in order to solve this, as the following don’t seem like likely candidates:
I highly doubt they had "audio-video’ blocking enabled. But it’s possible.
Oh the joys of crew playing around with the settings 
Never know what is going to happen then!
Further, if the “audio-video blocking” setting also blocks iphone text message photos = you’d figure the first thing that the captain would say is:
“URGENT - we have basic internet but we have no Apple TV, Sonos, movies or music”
AFTER we made some changes in the peplink router.
I recommend finding the ipsec endpoint ip’s of their service for wifi-calling and registering those outbound fw rules higher. We had to do this before for another client.
Just allow one ip/phone direct with no restrictions then check active sessions to see what ipsec tunnels are established which are likely for wifi-calling / Text/mms delivery over IP.
Hello Tim (@CBNW)
Here is a previous thread related to the issue that could offer you some insight. Our challenge was our customer, who has remote land-based workers using various satellite services.
This old case study details one customer’s location where the issue occurred.
Have a good weekend,
Marcus