texting issues

[kdh53]

I'm new to public mobile. I have unlimited texting so turned off imessage on my phone to not incurr data charges/ usage. Now I can text to almost everyone including those with iphones, but with someone wlse with an i phone it is saying i must enable imessage and it wont send as a sms. I have 1 GB of data in the plan. does turning on imessage use very much data?

[stonechucker]

@kdh53, if you wish to not enable iMessage, I believe you can get your friend to change your contact info on her phone.  Change the reference from iPhone to Cell/Mobile.

[Haiggy]

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@kdh53 wrote:

I checked and made sure the recipient with the iphone was a number and not an email. it;s weird because of all the other iphones in my contacts, she's the only one it won't send to unless i message is enabled and I can't hold and try to manually send as a text.

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What you can try next is to send a new message to the phone number, and if that doesn't work, you may have to delete the thread and start a new one instead of using the existing iMessage thread.

[kdh53]

I checked and made sure the recipient with the iphone was a number and not an email. it;s weird because of all the other iphones in my contacts, she's the only one it won't send to unless i message is enabled and I can't hold and try to manually send as a text.

[kdh53]

thank you!

[Haiggy · Accepted solution]

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@Triguy wrote:

Texting does not use your data but you need to enable it inorder to send texts.

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You don't need data enabled to send text. If you are sending pictures or video or to an e-mail address, only then would you need data turned on.

@kdh53do you have anyone from iMessage with an e-mail address instead of their phone number? iPad users wouldn't have a phone number, and I myself use an e-mail address for my iMessage because my e-mail address changes less often than my phone number. However, you can still reach these contacts if you leave your data switch to 'on' as above.

[GR]

@kdh53 @srlawren   I should have added that in there.  Pictures aren't too bad but videos chew up data thru iMessage 

[srlawren]

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@GR wrote:

@kdh53 iMessage doesn't use hardly any data, with 1gb plan Id leave it on and wouldn't worry about it 

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@GR @kdh53 well, simple instant messaging is light on data.  However, if you send a lot of images or videos and so on, those will chew up data.

[popping]

@kdh53 

Following the instructions in the following link to get your iPhone to send text instead of using iMessage.

https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/support/article/change-iphone-imessage-to-text

[GR]

@kdh53 iMessage doesn't use hardly any data, with 1gb plan Id leave it on and wouldn't worry about it 

[Triguy]

Texting does not use your data but you need to enable it inorder to send texts.