Forward MMS to Email

[radioguy]

Bit of a long shot here I know, but figured I'd ask.

I have an LTE device (B315-7C4C) which we use for phone (via an RJ11 jack) and Internet as well as occasionally receiving SMS messages.  The device can't handle MMS messages at all, when an MMS is sent it just throws an error saying to insert the SIM into another device.  I'm wondering if it's possible to configure something on the Public Mobile side to forward MMS type messages to an email, or even another cell #, or potentially send the sender an error saying "MMS is not supported to this number"

[radioguy]

What is a B315-7C4C? Some kind of multi-purpose wireless home phone/internet device?

It looks like it be like a Telus Hub that can handle rural internet by SIM and do phone calls like a WF721. Is that correct @radioguy ?

Thanks for the interest, the device I am using is a standard LTE Internet gateway with RJ11 jack, very similar to this one: https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-B311-521-Unlocked-Venezuela-Caribbean/dp/B094W8H943/

While not mobile you can have a voip.ms land line that also sends and receives texts....by email. And the voip.ms can be mobile on an app using data.....but I don’t think that is what you are looking for? There are lots of combinations that you can have with voip,ms. 

Correct, I'd like to keep the number tied to a wireless carrier rather then porting it out to VoIP and potentially having SMS deliver-ability issues with certain carriers / websites

[CountyDownIeUk]

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@Nezgar 

@radioguy 

@Nezgar wrote:

What is a B315-7C4C? Some kind of multi-purpose wireless home phone/internet device?

It looks like it be like a Telus Hub that can handle rural internet by SIM and do phone calls like a WF721. Is that correct @radioguy ?

@CountyDownIeUkalready mentioned the ZTE WF721 wireless home phone box, which also provides a RJ11 jack which him and I have, but it *only* does voice -- any SMS/MMS messages sent to it are simply ignored by the device. There is an updated WF723 that also does VoLTE, but again no SMS/MMS functionality.

If you really want to be able to receive SMS/MMS to email, you're probably best to consider a VoIP service like voip.ms. You could get an additional number for the purposes of people sending SMS/MMS to separate from your existing SIM, or you could switch the phone service entirely over to them and use a softphone app, VoIP phone, or an analog ATA to use traditional RJ11 devices.... voip.ms DOES support forwarding SMS and MMS received to you via email.

While not mobile you can have a voip.ms land line that also sends and receives texts....by email. And the voip.ms can be mobile on an app using data.....but I don’t think that is what you are looking for? There are lots of combinations that you can have with voip,ms. 

You can even reply via email but its a bit finnicky. There's flexibility with VoIP, but it also adds complications and is only as good as your internet connection and the VoIP provider itself is an additional point of failure. (voip.ms did have issues for a few weeks in 2021 for example)

Yes finicky...but if useful....more you use the less finicky. 

The other option for using a PM SIM for a land line vs WF721 is to have a Bluetooth connection to a Panasonic link2cell phone set. This would allow to see texts on the cell phone. But I don’t think that is what OP is looking for either. I bought a new link2cell Panasonic set and it would not pair by Bluetooth to an iPhone 8 Plus. So if I was to do again...I would be calling Panasonic before I bought another unit. Luckily I bought at Costco and had a no hassle return. 

Curious to hear more about the device you're using at this moment....

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[Nezgar]

Google voice is for US numbers only.

Twitter checks that the number is a mobile number by checking what kind of carrier the number originally came from. To tell where the number is after the number is ported elsewhere, an LRN lookup is necessary. This is much easier to do for US numbers, and is much harder to do for canadian numbers. As such for a Canadian number, you may have some success with twitter by porting a number originally with a mobile carrier to voip.ms, as they will likely assume it is still with the original carrier unless they have mechanisms in place to perform a canadian LRN lookup. Likewise, a number that originated with voip.ms (or any landline) may not work with twitter even once ported to a mobile carrier if they don't do an LRN lookup.

[softech]

@radioguy   For free Google voice account,  I don't think you can port Canadian number over.  

They do have pay Google service that comes with Google Voice in Canada, which I think you can port your Canadian number over,  but I am not certain you want to make the "investment"

[radioguy]

Google Voice sounds like an interesting option, do you know if it's possible to port Canadian numbers to them (I have access to a US phone # I could use for initial registration) or is it us numbers only?

[softech]

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@radioguy wrote:

VoIP could be an option, except that a lot of services don't seem to accept VoIP numbers as valid SMS destinations, 

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@radioguy 

I believe TextNow has paid option to receive shortcode  message as well, but its not cheap

If you can have access to Google Voice in US, it is a perfect solution for receiving text or mms.  But you have to get a US number to set it up

[radioguy]

Thanks for the interest.  The device I am using is similar to this guy: https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-B311-521-Unlocked-Venezuela-Caribbean/dp/B094W8H943/  It's your standard LTE Internet gateway with the addition of an RJ11 jack for voice service.

It's also got a webGUI which you can use to receive and send SMS messages, I specifically chose this one because the SMS API the browser uses has been reverse engineered, so it's possible to send and receive messages via 3rd party software.  I'm actually using the API to feed messages into a chat application to easily receive and respond to texts.  It works quite well for plain old SMS, the device just has no support for MMS messages.  

VoIP could be an option, except that a lot of services don't seem to accept VoIP numbers as valid SMS destinations, for instance if I punch a Voip.ms SMS enabled DID into Twitter it just throws back that the number is invalid.  While I suppose I could port my number out to some VoIP provider and then use a new number for my  wireless service I'm trying to avoid juggling multiple numbers hahaha.

I was hoping there would be some way of 'rejecting' MMS messages so that Public Mobile would realize they hadn't been delivered and would make them available via email or some other method.  Obviously, the other solution is to find a device which properly supports MMS, so if there's something out there that does I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[Nezgar]

What is a B315-7C4C? Some kind of multi-purpose wireless home phone/internet device?

@CountyDownIeUkalready mentioned the ZTE WF721 wireless home phone box, which also provides a RJ11 jack which him and I have, but it *only* does voice -- any SMS/MMS messages sent to it are simply ignored by the device. There is an updated WF723 that also does VoLTE, but again no SMS/MMS functionality.

If you really want to be able to receive SMS/MMS to email, you're probably best to consider a VoIP service like voip.ms. You could get an additional number for the purposes of people sending SMS/MMS to separate from your existing SIM, or you could switch the phone service entirely over to them and use a softphone app, VoIP phone, or an analog ATA to use traditional RJ11 devices.... voip.ms DOES support forwarding SMS and MMS received to you via email. You can even reply via email but its a bit finnicky. There's flexibility with VoIP, but it also adds complications and is only as good as your internet connection and the VoIP provider itself is an additional point of failure. (voip.ms did have issues for a few weeks in 2021 for example)

Curious to hear more about the device you're using at this moment....

[CountyDownIeUk]

Hi. I use a ZTE WF721 (wireless phone) 

Koodo and Telus offers the service but I use same device with a PM SIM. 

It only allows phone service. 

But Telus also offers

Which appears to be similar to what you have. And is a step up from my WF721. 

This allows phone service and remote internet. 

Mine does not have a work around that I know of to receive a text. And to be honest I don't tell any one that our home phone land line is run from a SIM card. 

We use the ZTE box with a Panasonic phone set and set up the voice mail to go to the Panasonic set. I see there is a voicemail indicator on our ZTE...but have never seen it light up. 

So maybe @Nezgar  will have some ideas. 

[radioguy]

Oh yeah something like that would be great!  Hopefully they get a chance to chime in here.

[darlicious]

@radioguy 

Our fellow members @Nezgar or @CountyDownIeUk have some experience with similar set ups at home and may be able to offer some suggestions for your issue. I know when I was with telus and had a data block on my phone telus would give me a web address to access my MMS. There may be something similar for you to utilize?

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

[radioguy]

Thanks for the reply, that's kinda what I was afraid of.  Still trying to see if there's a better modem that will do all the non-standard things I need heh.

[softech]

@radioguy   Sorry, not on PM side, there, is no text forwarding available on the PM system.  All these text forwarding has to be done on the device side with the help of some app.  Understand yours setup is different from an actual phone, so, probably you are out of luck