MMS service ?

[Clever-Trevor]

Wondering if MMS will ever be a free service? ( as mostly with iPhone use iMessage so not used ) but somethings useful when sending to Android devices, yet charges high for MMS ( ps/ likes of Vodafone, do have some MMS included ) - thoughts,,,,,, 

[dksglen]

Quite often have sent MMS accidentally to others, via iMessage. Can make quite a difference to the monthly bill. Agree, they should have some included on allowance. 

[PeteG]

Ah, that's a frustrating one. An option that might help you is to place a spend limit or cap onto your account. This will cause the MMS to fail if you send one by accident. It helped me as I often just sent them by accident. 

[JonathanB]

Hey Clever-Trevor,

There's no current plans to include MMS on plans that I'm aware of. Discussion and suggestions for how to improve our offerings are always welcome here though.

The feature isn't too extensively used these days to my knowledge. As you've mentioned iMessage covers sending images with your data allowance/WiFi, and you can also use various 3rd party messaging apps too, for those situations where you're contacting friends that use Android.

We'd love to see other user's thoughts on this. Do we still use MMS today? What other services are we using?

JonathanB

[aycaramba]

My gran doesn’t have WiFi, an iPhone or WhatsApp/any social media so to send pics of the great grandkids we need to use MMS. I can’t send that many as it’s so expensive which is a real shame. 

[PeteG]

Hi. 

If your gran is using an Android phone released in the last 5 or so years, the phone should support RCS messaging. RCS messaging allows sending of pictures and other media. On Apple phones, there will be an update released this year that ads RCS support to those phones too, and your gran will be able to share pictures with pretty much any one with a relatively up to date phone. 

Pete.

[aycaramba]

Her phone is older than that, she’d never get used to a new one. I can’t imagine she’s the only one. 

[jh27]

My brother, who has an iPhone, sent me a picture using iMessages - because I have an Android phone, it was converted to an MMS group chat. I sent three messages in reply, that only contained text, but was charged the MMS rate, and because it was a group chat, I was charged for each recipient (i.e. him and myself) - and because I've been with 3 for over ten years, I was charged the legacy MMS rate - i.e 54p rather than 17.4p. Kind of annoying, because he has me on WhatsApp and Signal

I think it's time I moved to Vodafone

[PeteG]

Hello. 

Ah, that's disappointing to hear. 

The issue you've described would happen on any network. The network doesn't select how the message should be sent, and can't see the contents of the message either - so it could be plain text, or a video, it would be charged the same. 

The phone chooses the messaging standard, and most phones will indicate the standard being used somewhere on the screen. On some phones, you'll have an option to automatically change to MMS in certain conditions, I'd recommend checking for the option and turning it off to avoid the issue in future. 

Hopefully it won't be an issue for much longer anyway, since finally iOS will be upgraded to support the latest messaging standard - RCS Messaging in iOS18. 

Oh, it might also be worth placing a spend cap on your account, this can prevent accidental charges as well.

Pete.

[Clever-Trevor]

Thanks,

I feel MMS is too expensive so most opt to find an alternative. 

Its a pity, that much lime SMS of years gone; we were charged, now is not - that MMS could not say have 50 included in plans……