Environment
SMS
Device: mobile phone
Operating system:
iOS
Android
SIM type: plastic SIM
Issue
I see a random SMS in the SMS console on the SIM sent from the phone upon boot-up.
I see my iPhone sends an SMS with "STATE" automatically. Can I disable it?
Solution
Use the SIM in an IoT device instead, or disable SMS on the SIM to avoid unwarranted SMS.
The automated SMS is sent by the cellular stack at a level that you, as a user, do not have access to. There is no toggle in phone's settings to disable it, and the only real fixes (custom carrier bundles, MDM, carrier config overrides) all require either device management infrastructure or technical access. The practical answer for most users is to accept the SMS as harmless background noise.
Cause
When a smartphone (running either iOS / Android) detects a SIM, it may automatically send a silent SMS to the carrier's Visual Voicemail (VVM) short code to activate or query VVM. It fires the STATE SMS as routine housekeeping, invisible to the user. On Onomondo SIMs, this goes nowhere because Onomondo doesn't run a VVM service. However, every SMS will be charged for according to operator's data rates.