A cellular telephone clock is automatically set to correlate to a timestamp contained in a Short Messaging Service (SMS) status report. Accordingly, an exemplary cell phone clock can be properly set any time the cell phone receives a status report. By setting the cell phone device time to correlate to the world time, the exemplary cell phone clock can be automatically set, without requiring any action by the user and without requiring a special time set control message. When the cell phone transmits an SMS message, the cell phone stores the device time corresponding to the time that the message was sent (DTS). When a status report is received, the exemplary cell phone stores the device time corresponding to the time that the status report was received (DTR). Additionally, the cell phone stores the world time that is included in the status report by the SMSC that handled the message (WT). By subtracting the DTR from the WT, the cell phone can determine an approximate difference between the cell phone's device time (and clock) and the world time. By adding this difference to the current device time (DTC), the DTC can be set to closely approximate the WT.