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Is unlimited texting really unlimited?

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

My plan has unlimited text messages.

I need to text hundreds of my contacts to promote my new website every day.

Does anybody know if texting a thousand times a day is allowed?

Or is unlimited texting really unlimited?

Thanks.

44 REPLIES 44

@softech 

 

I don't know what the limits are.

 

But I know that cellular communications is a business and cellular infrastructure costs money. They only pay to install, maintain, and operate equipment which will generate profit. The minimum necessary to optimize expected traffic and usage. They do not upgrade or reconfigure things just to accommodate anomalous heavy-demand-heavy-traffic individuals - at least not for such individuals buying $15 plans, lol. Limits and tradeoffs must be engineered into the system at many levels, "normal" users would rarely be bothered by (or even aware of) such limitations, "abnormal" users would quickly find the limitations too frustrating and restrictive to be worthwhile.

 

Note Public Mobile Terms of Service ...

 

What limits apply to my use of the Public Mobile service?
• You can only use Public Mobile services for your own individual use, with compatible devices and in compliance with the law. You also agree not to:
• Resell the service or receive any charge or benefit for the use of the service by any third party;
• Use the service to send any threatening or obscene material or to harass, embarrass or invade the privacy of another person;
• Engage in any activity that could compromise the security of the service or any network or computers on the Internet, or that could interfere with the
services of any Internet access provider;
• Use the service in any way that requires excessive network capacity or that may adversely affect other Public Mobile customers or the service;
• Copy or change the identification functions of the service or your device, or permit anyone other than a Public Mobile authorized person to do so;
• Threaten, abuse or harass any Public Mobile customer representative;
• Use a device that has been reported lost or stolen to any wireless service provider.
• Engage in any activity on the Public Mobile or partner networks that is seen as excessive or malicious, as solely determined by Public Mobile.


@Korth wrote:

 

But there are technical limits on MMS attachments. The network machinery can only handle a certain amount so it budgets bandwidth, processing, memory, and storage resources for each user. If you send a continuous flood of MMS spams then chances are you'll hit the limit quick enough, 


But this is more a timing issue.. like x number of  MMS /min rather than a set number of message per month thing, right?

 

Whether Public Mobile has "hidden" policies about blocking or not-blocking bulk outgoing messages is up for debate.

 

But there are technical limits on MMS attachments. The network machinery can only handle a certain amount so it budgets bandwidth, processing, memory, and storage resources for each user. If you send a continuous flood of MMS spams then chances are you'll hit the limit quick enough, your subsequent messages will be lost or delayed or destroyed long before they even have a chance to reach your spam-hating audience.

@haoc8888   hey.. just want to see if you have reach the edge of the Galaxy yet?    what is your daily number of texting at this point?

adina23
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Yes, as far as I know, texting is unlimited. I am a user of a $15  plan, so I was really happy to know that I can text unlimited Canada wide as well internationally, which is great and absolutely awesome. 

@haoc8888 Sounds like you have a good testing regime there, ie with sending yourself one every 50. Look fwd to hearing how it all goes.


@haoc8888 wrote:

"Are you checking that the recipients are actually receiving the messages?"

 

That's one of the things I worry about.

 


Add your own number (or family) to the middle of the batch and to the last one,  usually that would be a good enough test  to see if the full batch is working


@computergeek541 wrote:

Ino carrier offers truly unlimited service whether it comes to talk, text, or data service, desspite what the marketing materials will say. All carriers have limits


true.. once you hit the limit, they will consider your use as business usage .. (I assume OP mass SMS is for business use of some kind).. then they will say you need to join business plan instead (yes, PM does not have it. .they might "upsell" you to Telus business plans.. )  LoL

 

and Yes, the SPAM filter should be automatic.  But if OP is ok to just send SMS one batch every day  and has been working, I think it is safe.  As long as your program does not work 24/7  🙂

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

"Are you checking that the recipients are actually receiving the messages?"

 

That's one of the things I worry about.

I don't know if it's 100% successful. But I did get some feedback from some recipients. So for sure they got the messages. Also after every 50 texts, I send one to my another number. and it all worked.

 

I spent some time on free texting app (such as textNow). Only at the end did I find no message was sent only after a few try. I guess sending text costs much more than calling for providers.


@haoc8888 wrote:

So day 1, I sent 50 texts in one hour, or 50 x 4 = 200 texts. that's 5 texts (or 5 x4 = 20) in 5 mins.

Day 2, I sent 100 texts.

Day 3 which is today, I'm planning to send 150 texts or 150 x4 = 600.

Day 4: 200....

 

I think every second morning, "human" will check the operation log. if there is any spam alarm triggered, they will do something. maybe contact you first.

 

up to now nothing happens.

I doubt that there's anyone checking.  These things are going to be largely automatic and indescrimiate based on pure numbers and frequency.  As for the original question about unlimited, no carrier offers truly unlimited service whether it comes to talk, text, or data service, desspite what the marketing materials will say. All carriers have limits (even when advertised as unlimited) or at least criteria for usage that they would consider to be abnormal usage and and points at which they reserve the right to cut a customer off. However, while there are limits, the vast majority of customers will never encounter them.

@haoc8888 Are you checking that the recipients are actually receiving the messages?

 

If you get blocked that will probably be the only way to tell...

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

So day 1, I sent 50 texts in one hour, or 50 x 4 = 200 texts. that's 5 texts (or 5 x4 = 20) in 5 mins.

Day 2, I sent 100 texts.

Day 3 which is today, I'm planning to send 150 texts or 150 x4 = 600.

Day 4: 200....

 

I think every second morning, "human" will check the operation log. if there is any spam alarm triggered, they will do something. maybe contact you first.

 

up to now nothing happens.

 

 

@haoc8888 Actually technically sending an MMS shows in the usage history as 1 "Data Event" ... distinctly different than an SMS which shows "Outgoing Text" ...

@haoc8888   does it matter if it is mms or sms with with what you are doing?

 

if you want to confirm, turn off your Mobile Data.  If it is MMS, those messages would not get sent... if SMS broken into multiple, they will still send out without issue.

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I don't know it's SMS or MMS.

Did you mean if it's MMS, the usage history will only show 1 text?

 

And I just sign up a new $15 account on Sunday.

@computergeek541 Well look at that, I just tested that on my phone (BlackBerry Keyone with android 8.1 using plain google messages app) and it does as you describe: after 5 messages worth of characters is typed, it switches to MMS.

pkaraa
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

it is unlimited but it can be marked spam for bulk texting.

@softech Ahh right, I remember now. So I guess send one message with 1600 characters to trigger 10 in 1 go. Or add some unicode like a smiley🙂 and you may find you suddenly only get 80 characters per sms

 

I just hope OP is testing on a throwaway account, in case it gets permanently blocked, or for a significant amount of time.....


@Nezgar wrote:

@softech Heh, I seem to recall discussion in the past that sending as MMS on the $10 plan would actually NOT decrement the texts usage at all.......😉 😉

 

But it would depend on the phone if it automatically changes to MMS after 160 characters. My android 8.1 does not, unless I add an attachment or set a "subject" . Even then, I know quickly because it wont send until I turn data on.


On my phone, it tells me if the conversion has taken place below the text input box, but that would depend on the app being used to send the message.  It doesn't happen to me after 160 charcacters, but rather after a higher amount, somewhere around the length of 5 SMS messages. 

@Nezgar OP is trying to to test the limit. .to see how much is "Unlimited" , to see if he can really "to infinity and beyond"..   I am curious to know too.. 

@softech Heh, I seem to recall discussion in the past that sending as MMS on the $10 plan would actually NOT decrement the texts usage at all.......😉 😉

 

But it would depend on the phone if it automatically changes to MMS after 160 characters. My android 8.1 does not, unless I add an attachment or set a "subject" . Even then, I know quickly because it wont send until I turn data on.

@haoc8888  .. and how's the experiment going?  you hit the "edge of the Galaxy" yet? 


@Nezgar wrote:

@haoc8888 it counts as 4 texts. If you are on a grandfathered $10 plan with 50 texts per 30 days, indeed that would deduct 4.

 

If you are on the current $15 plan, or any other current plan for that matter, they all have unlimited texts, so it really doesn't matter how many.


@haoc8888 

 

Some phones will automatically convert a very long SMS message into a one MMS message.  If that's done, it will only count as one outgoing message being sent. However, Nezgar information is right if that conversion doesn't happen.

..pretty sure it will count as multiple

 

and you sure they don't auto convert to MMS?  whenever my text are too long, my phone automatically change to send as MMS

@haoc8888 it counts as 4 texts. If you are on a grandfathered $10 plan with 50 texts per 30 days, indeed that would deduct 4.

 

If you are on the current $15 plan, or any other current plan for that matter, they all have unlimited texts, so it really doesn't matter how many.

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

The body of my text message has more than 160 characters. So the system will send multiple times to complete the message.

 

As a result, each text shows up in my usage history with 4 identical entries.

 

Will the system count each of my text as 1 text or 4 texts? Any one knows? thanks.

There was an earlier thread about 6-12 months ago where someone did something similar, and after sending a couple hundred texts, their account was blocked from sending any further texts for a while, possibly up to a week. I don't remember what came if it, or if the block ever was lifted automatically.....

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

usually one text for each recipient. so in this case text limit is the same as recipient limit.

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @haoc8888 : You could also see if you can figure out the recipient limitations. If you send a bunch to a particular provider you might find the recipient limitations. That provider might think hey what's all this then. But how would you know which provider?

haoc8888
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

probably they'll warn you first. then suspend your number.

 

will report back in 2 days.

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