topic Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan in Get Support

Texting with the $15 per month plan

mariahruschak — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:04:44 GMT

I bought my 2 kids the $15 a month plan. It says unlimited international texts. Does that mean limited local texting? They can’t seem to text without wifi.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

HALIMACS — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:07:07 GMT

@mariahruschak

It's likely because they have RCS enabled.

That means with iPhones, it's iMessage. Or with Android, it's chat.

They can either switch to SMS only under their message settings or when they send an iMessage, hold the unsent message to deliver as SMS instead.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

esjliv — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:08:13 GMT

@mariahruschak - if they are using iMessage (iphone) or Chat Features (android) then they will require wifi or data.

If they want to use regular SMS texting turn the above features off, and enable SMS and MMS in the device settings.

EDIT: it actually means unlimited incoming and outgoing international texting. No overages here.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

HALIMACS — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:10:24 GMT

@mariahruschak

Additionally, the $15 plan includes unlimited international texting, which means when they're in Canada connected to the public mobile network , they can send / receive unlimited texts to / from anywhere in the world.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

BKNS27 — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:12:05 GMT

@mariahruschak

Texting is unlimited from Canada to anyone on their contact list.

What phone does your kids have?

It is probably a setting on the phone issue.

Data needs to be enable on the phones and SMS and MMS also need to be enabled.

Let us know what model phones so we can help further.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

softech — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:13:50 GMT

@mariahruschak Kids these days prefer to use iMessage or RCS but they need data. These text message apps does not use much data, however when you enable data for kids, the kids would finish using the data in no time , especially $15 plan only comes with limited data.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

JL9 — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:29:23 GMT

No it is unlimited texting for that as well, so as mentioned they would have to go in their settings to make sure they are sending just straight SMS messages.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

mariahruschak — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 02:40:25 GMT

Thank you for the help. They have an iphone 7 + an iphone 11.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

BKNS27 — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 02:45:01 GMT

@mariahruschak

Great, just go to Settings>Cellular>check to see if Cellular Data is turned on.

Also check if SMS and MMS is a turned on, go to Settings>scroll down to Messages>turn on Send as SMS and turn on MMS messaging.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

CountyDownIeUk — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 03:17:06 GMT

ALL texts inbound and outbound are free. Even if you attach a picture.

BUT there is a difference between texting and iMessage if they have iPhones.

iPhone blue bubble, is over wifi or data, and is between 2 Apple products

iPhone green bubble, is over the carrier network, and is between an iPhone and an android (or an iPhone with iMessage turned off).

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

Luddite — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 18:01:04 GMT

@HALIMACS @esjliv FYI: for iPhones it's not iMessage or SMS, but both. Settings should have all three turned on: iMessage, Send as SMS, and MMS.

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

esjliv — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 20:16:44 GMT

@mariahruschak wrote:
I bought my 2 kids the $15 a month plan. It says unlimited international texts. Does that mean limited local texting? They can’t seem to text without wifi.

@Luddite - this issue with the OP, as I understood it, was that their kids could not text without wifi / data whatsoever.

So, we can presume here they are either using iMessages or Chat Features (android)? And, likely burning up their data allotment.

Therefore, to guarantee messages are going through SMS, and not inadvertently using data/wifi (for chances of missed messages), my recommendation would be to turn off iMessage entirely.

I understand that may not be what others may be a fan of. When the kiddos can pay for data themselves they can dig in their own pockets to burn through it. 🙂

Unless, you are talking about a possible issue about needing to deregister their iMessage account with Apple in order to receive texts from prior iMessage contacts, perhaps?

Re: Texting with the $15 per month plan

HALIMACS — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 22:17:03 GMT

@Luddite wrote:
@HALIMACS @esjliv FYI: for iPhones it's not iMessage or SMS, but both. Settings should have all three turned on: iMessage, Send as SMS, and MMS.

I'm a bit unsure about this @Luddite , but I may test it.

Truth be told, I'm primarily an Android user, and based on personal experience, turning off RCS completely remedied past issues with receiving/sending certain types of messages.

I've recently starting using an iPhone, but haven't played around with the SMS/RCS/MMS settings yet. Lot's to learn.