Well I don't think it's Verizon that actually determines it...the software used for iMessage appears to be doing this. Like I said, I checked my account usage and went through each page of the SMS charges and none of my iMessages are showing. I specifically made sure I searched for my mother's number since she is the only VZW iPhone user that I exchange iMessages with and her number does not show...not even as m2m SMS. So it would appear that VZW is not able to see when I am texting her as long as the messages are going through iMessage successfully. I have had 2 failed iMessages occur so far...neither of which were with my mother. Those 2 messages, which were sent as SMS since I have that feature turned on, did show on my SMS usage but that was to be expected since they were sent as SMS and I was aware of that at the time that those failures occurred since the little message showed on the screen that stated the messages had been sent as sms text.
You did bring up something interesting though....if you are trying to send iMessages at a time when you don't have access to 3G or WIFI then it wouldn't be to much of a surprise that the message isn't being sent as an iMessage (since I would think in the scenario you posted the iMessage system isn't being accessed). In THAT case, I can see being charged for SMS because you don't actually have access to the iMessage system...which would explain the message turning green (which is what happens if the system is down or not being accessed). In that case...if you want to avoid that and you often find yourself in that situation it would be best to turn off the SMS feature for iMessages so the messages will just fail until you have access to iMessage again.
If you didn't have unlimited messaging plan and you wanted to avoid the possibility of your iMessages being sent as SMS then you would just need to turn off the option to send as SMS in the settings for iMessages. They would fail as I mentioned in a different post (our posts are overlapping each other so that post may not have been there when you posted this), but once you have access to the iMessage system again you would be able to click the red exclamation mark and select the option to retry sending the message.
Hopefully not off topic:
I have an iPhone 4S with Verizon. I want to iMessage another iPhone 4S Verizon user WITHOUT it showing up on either bill in any way, shape, or form (don't ask...long story). Is this possible? Please describe, in detail, if settings on either or both phones should be set differently.
Thank you so much.
Make sure you both have "Send as SMS" turned off in settings. Make sure you both are sending messages to the number, Apple ID or email that you have set as the "Receive At" in settings. Can't guarantee that this will completely eliminate the possibility since some claim to have issues but I can say that absolutely none of my iMessages show up on my bill...not that it would matter to me if they did since I have unlimited messaging and I'm not trying to hide any of my communications (not a dig at anyone), but it's good to know that for me, it works as expected.
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
