Unlimited?

[Pjpaulson]

Hi there, I purchased a $15 plan for my daughter which is supposed to have unlimited texting picture messaging and 250 MB of data. For some reason her texting seems to be limited and no longer sends texts without Wi-Fi, and her available data disappears immediately after her plan is renewed each month, even though data roaming is turned off and VPN is only activated when connected to Wi-Fi.

any suggestions?

[Korth]

Standard MMS (photo attachments) require active cellular data. They won't work across WiFi data.

But they are "unlimited" at Public Mobile. Each one will be reported on Self-Serve usage as an "MMS Event" which consumes 0.000MB of billable data. Even when you've already used up all your plan and add-on data provisions.

If your data isn't active when an MMS is received then it seems to be stored in a sort of "message box" on the network. For a while. But not forever. If you don't download it soon enough then your "click to download" will keep erroring out because there's no longer anything to fetch.

If your data is active all the time then your phone will slowly sip away at it like a leech. Background processes, syncs, updates, notifications, telemetry, cloud pings, etc. You can (and should) disable as much of this stuff as you can control, but iPhones are notorious for locking users into Apple's ideas about what is an what isn't "important" when it comes to your data.

And your APN settings have to be correctly setup, of course. "APN Type=default,mms" is needed on some devices.

[darlicious]

@Pjpaulson 

Remember SMS is regular texts and MMS are picture texts. Ensure both are enabled. Check that the iPhone doesn't update or share data like photos while on mobile data. This could be the cause of immediate entire plan data usage after renewal as the access to mobile data after renewal would start the data transfer among shared devices. Make sure that setting is set to update/share when on wifi only.

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 #

[Pjpaulson]

Awesome thanks everybody for the help we will try it out turning off iMessage and using the send as SMS text messaging

[hTideGnow]

Hi @Pjpaulson , if she cannot send unless she is on WiFi,  she is using iMessage or RCS and not basic text.  Kids these days use that more often.

if she is on iPhone , do what @BeachNBeer suggested.  

If she is on Android with RCS, do this:

Open Google Messages 

Tap the 3-dot menu in the top right.

Tap Settings>Chat features.

Toggle “Enable chat features” to the off position.

[darlicious]

@Pjpaulson 

Does your daughter have an iPhone? Have you updated the carrier profile via iTunes? If she is using iMessage then that will use mobile data when not connected to wifi. Ensure in her settings that she has SMS/MMS toggled on as MMS will not use mobile plan data they are sent thru a separate server so mobile data only needs to be toggled on for its use. Turning off iMessage unless needed will help keep mobile data use to a minimum. Also turn off wifi assist and if you can in an iPhone turn off background data.

This thread may prove helpful to you...

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Get-Support/FYI-iOS-and-APNs/m-p/323118#M162906

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 #

[BeachNBeer · Accepted solution]

@Pjpaulson  Sounds like your daughter has an iPhone and is using iMessage (which needs wifi or data to work) rather than standard text (sms/MMS) you should fix the settings of the phone so it works properly.