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A follow-up to my question over on the Law stack A draft agreement I'm reviewing writes to say

The lessor shall have, in the event of the lessee's breach of     
or default under this agreement and/or the lessor being of 
the view that the lessee is not cooperating and/or not 
complying with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, a   
right to terminate this Agreement and the licence granted 
hereunder, after issuing to the lessee a prior written notice 
of not less than 3(three) months by registered post, or speed 
post (and also by (i) email where email id of the lessee is 
available; and (ii) SMS and/or whatsapp where the mobile 
phone number of the lessee is available)

The answers received on the Law Stack indicate that as long as the mode/s of communication constitute/s part of the agreement, the communication is legal.

I'm trying to convince my opposite number that - unlike Whatsapp/Signal - SMS is not connection oriented. A text message may fail. A text message may fail silently. A text message may fail in whole, or even in part. My counterpart is even less of a geek/nerd ( I forget which is the good type :p ) than I. Convincing her that an RFC -a collaborative document - establishes protocol for how SMS work is - so far - without success. The wikipedia article - similarly collaborative - same problem.

How does an RFC work to become an official 'protocol'? Where is this documented authoritatively, and who is the change control authority?

Everyone
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    SMS isn't an internet protocol. It is not defined by an IETF RFC. It was standardized by ETSI as part of GSM. – Spiff Jul 28 '22 at 06:39
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    This might help. The "specification" in the title might carry some authority. https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/123000_123099/123040/09.03.00_60/ts_123040v090300p.pdf – mtak Jul 28 '22 at 07:04
  • @mtak: I'll keep my fingers, and toes crossed. Thank you so much! – Everyone Jul 28 '22 at 07:13
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    What does the standardization process have to do with your legal concern about SMS? Email can also fail, and postal mail can be lost. Your agreement should include some requirement that the notification be acknowledged no matter how it's delivered (although you eventually run into the two-generals problem). – Barmar Jul 28 '22 at 14:52
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    RFCs are probably not as collaborative as you think - they are not like Wikipedia. – user253751 Jul 28 '22 at 15:09
  • "*unlike Whatsapp/Signal*" - I don't see how these messenger services would be different. Their messages also can fail to be transmitted. – Bergi Jul 28 '22 at 17:14
  • @Bergi The difference is that they'll tell you whether the message was delivered or failed. SMS is purely one-way, there's no acknowledgement. It's analogous to the difference between ordinary postal mail and mail with return receipt. – Barmar Jul 28 '22 at 21:25
  • @Barmar: "they'll tell you whether the message was delivered or failed" isn't accurate either. They'll *try* to tell you. The return receipt can also be lost. And retrying that just leads to [madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem) – Ben Voigt Jul 28 '22 at 22:30
  • @BenVoigt I know, I already mentioned the two general's problem in an earlier comment. – Barmar Jul 28 '22 at 22:31

1 Answers1

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SMS is not an Internet protocol, and is not defined by an IETF RFC. SMS is instead a telecom industry technology. It was standardized by ETSI as part of GSM.

So this won't help with your legal issue, but since you asked, the IETF standards process is documented in RFC 2026 (BCP 9) and has been amended by many other RFCs.

Please note that the IETF is notorious for rarely letting anything reach actual standard status. HTTP/1.1 was finally made a standard in June 2022, after more than a quarter-century of being the major workhorse of the Internet, and being the basis for many multibillion dollar businesses.

Spiff
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