Is there a way to see the original sent date and time stamp in received SMSes?

[ant (Ant Dude)]

Sometimes incoming SMSes (not iMessages) come late due to power off,
airplane mode on, weak connections, or no signal in iPhone. I noticed
these received SMSes were dated and timed of receiving. Is there a way
to show their original dates and times that they were sent out?

Thank you for reading and hopefully answering soon. :)

[Shamino (David C.)]

Not that I know of. I would assume that Apple would need to update their Messages app, assuming the data is available.

I did a little digging and it would appear that the 3GPP standard for SMS does include timestamp data - specifically, the time the central office receives the message from the sender. And I think this is delivered over the air to recipients:

3.2.2 Service‑Centre‑Time‑Stamp

The Service‑Centre‑Time‑Stamp is the information element by which the SC informs the recipient MS about the time of arrival of the short message at the SM‑TL entity of the SC. The time value is included in every SMS‑DELIVER (TP‑Service‑Centre‑Time‑Stamp field, see clause 9) being delivered to the MS.

Where:

• SC is the service center - the mobile operator’s computer managing SMS
• MS is a mobile station - any device with a cellular modem, like your phone

So the modem in your phone should be getting those timestamps. I would like to assume that it is therefore being delivered to iOS. Which puts the ball in Apple’s court.