Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
Tacabron
Newbie

Hello,

I recently had a rough month staying within my data limit, and just wanted to confirm a few not commonly advertised details that I experienced and wanted to confirm. I was very close to my data limit and turned off my Cellular data so that I would not have any type of usage other than Wifi when I am at home or at work. I was able to text call, and use the internet without a problem. I was at the doctors office, and needed to get some info online so I figured no big deal I will turn on my data, go online for a minute and then turn it off. As soon as I turned on my data, I received 24 images, and a whole lot of messages that just poured in from a group message of some of my friends that had been vacationing etc. I called to find out why I didn't recieve all of these images and messages while on my WiFi. In calling Verizon to find out, they said that you can possibly send images when hooked up to Wifi, but that you cannot recieve them. The server stores all undelivered MMS until Cellular Data is turned back on and then delivers them all at that time. I asked what if you do not want to recieve the undelivered MMS messages that have piled up because they would destroy my data usage. I was told that there is no way to have that not happen because then customers would complain that they were not receiving their messages. I was told that the best course of action was to up my data plan so that I do not go over.

I can not control people sending me images, although I can control how many I send. I would think that it would be designed in my favor to charge me data for the ones I send, and let the ones I get via WiFi since I can not control the quantity of those. Back when data was unlimited, and I only had a small portion of Texts allowance per month, I was told that if one of my messages does not go through data, that it will automatically be sent via text. Now it seems everything is completely the opposite since we are charged for data, and texts are unlimited.

My Questions is to find out if there is any plan on changing this policy of not being able to recieve MMS via Wifi, or is it here to stay?

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Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Regular texts (SMS) send/receive over the voice connection, but picture and multimedia (such as group) texts (MMS) have to be sent/received over a mobile data connection.  They don't count against your data plan, though, they count against your text package.

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Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Regular texts (SMS) send/receive over the voice connection, but picture and multimedia (such as group) texts (MMS) have to be sent/received over a mobile data connection.  They don't count against your data plan, though, they count against your text package.

Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
azdave12
Newbie

How do you find out if the MMS have not been charged to your data plan?  We recently acquired in home WIFI so we are not using our data plan for internet use at home.  Will I be able to see any data charges on my status page with verizon?

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Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
Not applicable

MMS is not charged as data. Yes your My Verizon page will show data usage. It will not show what used that data. There is ZERO need to worry about MMS being charged as data.

Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
bizarmag
Enthusiast - Level 2

I suppose you could also test this.  Keep track of a few of your internet browsing sessions by date and time.  You can see the details of your data usage on your monthly bill by cell phone number.  I think you have to wait until the statement is created to go back and check the ones you have kept track of .  Check the details for the phone you are tracking to see if there is data usage showing up on the dates and times you kept track of.  The bill details don't tell you how long the data usage lasted, just how many KB,MB or GB were used for each data usage entry.  If you also keep track of approximately how long you are on the internet for each of the sessions you are tracking, you might be able to tell if the time and the data measurement appear to match (I don't know how to figure out how to do this though, but I think some people know how to estimate this).  If there are any matches, then I would challenge the reply that says "There is ZERO need to worry about MMS being charged as data."

Seems to me that everytime someone contacts Verizon about a data usage problem, the rep's standard answer/solution is to up your data plan; in other words, spend more money!  I see this over and over in so many posts, and get that answer myself.

Re: Verizon does not allow MMS via WiFi? It has to be through Cellular Data?
Not applicable

Your idea wouldn't work. There are things on the phone that could use data in the background one is not aware of. By the way the phone will tell you if something has used data on a specific day. You do NOT get charged for data when sending MMS. By the way MMS is limited to 1.2 MB per message anyway. So you'd have to send/receive 850 MMS that were the maximum size to use 1 GB in a month. That's 28 in a day.

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