AT&T Picture MMS messaging with no data. Can't figure it out.

[F2a]

I'm on the 25 dollar monthly plan unlimited texting that's all no mobile data at all when I send mms in my account it says data but says 0$

Interesting, do you have anything else on the phone that might try to use mobile data in the background such as email or some sort of backup?

 

[Devmer11]

I tested by leaving the house turning on WiFi and opening a web page it goes to a redirect page that says that if I would like to use mobile data I can purchase a data plan

 

[F2a]

Interesting, thanks Devmer11! That's a good setup you have going.

 

[Devmer11]

Here is a screencap of the Page I guess AT&T doesn't want customers to know it or something

 

[Patrick Naples]

I just don't understand WHY we need to use Data for group and picture messages (MMS).
I had a droid before and didn't have to use it. My friends who have Iphones don't have to either.
I'll probably be switching back to droid when I'm eligible for an upgrade. I waste too much data with the windows phone

 

[Devmer11]

it has something to do with the way windows phone uses MMS I think since the file is a relatively big size instead of mms it routs it through Data idk I would ask someone a lot more intune with wireless networks and junk

 

[troylytle]

Battery saver will stop your phone from using data automatically.

 

[Jacob Martin1]

Hi, I have a Lumia 520 on AT&T with no data package. When the phone first booted I checked the box to NOT use a data connection. Everything works great except I cannot send or receive picture messages. I've tried various internet and APN settings I've found around the web but nothing as worked. Does anyone have this working?

Fact you do Not do Not need data for a picture messages it seems to depend on the phone me and my wife almost went over our data plan so I shut off data on both phone's but my wife can send picture messages after she found a at&t message app could find it on mine ..I've got a. G3 and she's got a different phone but it can be done with no data !!!

 

[Joseph Hakanson]

I think I might be able to add some insight here. Up until today I have been using a dumb phone: no wifi, no data. Even so, I have always been able to send pictures and other media. That means that I was sending pictures through the same means as you typically do text: sms i believe. I think that the smartphones are programmed to require you to have a data turned on as a way to trick you into using data. Cellphone companies would love for you to unknowingly use data so they can charge you.

All this to say: dumb phones can send pics, so data-crippled smart phones should be able to do the same.

 

[sleerf]

I know this is an old thread but perhaps I can help clarify this for other people who stumble onto this site. I'm going to oversimplify and leave out some important details but they would just confuse most people.

To start, you have to recognize that everything on every digital phone is data. The voice is data. SMS is data. MMS is data. Internet is data. What your wireless provider is doing is essentially the same thing that your cable company does. Each one of these things is a "service" and each service either uses a separate frequency or a separate tag on the packets of data to route the traffic over the networks specifically dedicated for each of those services. SMS itself utilizes the control channel of the cell signal to a phone in much the same way that caller ID information is sent down the D channel on a PRI. That control channel is there to handoff your phone from cell to cell as you move, to setup and take down calls by assigning the frequencies to each phone as needed, and a few other things. When the control channel is in use for one reason no other data can traverse that channel.
The resources for sms are fairly limited It was never expected to be utilized as it is today. The reason text messaging used to be so expensive was because of the finite capacity for the traffic. They also managed to find a way to send small multi-media files over this same transport but it was even more expensive.
Fortunately, as smart phones came out with internet capability and everyone started getting data plans, (often FORCED to get a data plan), carriers were able to setup phones to do a form of "highest efficiency routing" where the phone would decide if it would be cheaper for the company and less burdensome on the network to send a message via traditional internet or if it should use the true SMS/MMS channels to send the message. Any more, the majority of sms and mms is sent and received over the customer's data plan to save the control channels from congestion. With all the users out there, if everyone was using the control channels for their messaging, it would be like new years every day and no sms messages would make it for days!
Despite that being the preferred routing of SMS/MMS, it will still utilize the control channels to send and receive if there is no "data" connection available. (I don't like the word "data" in place of "internet". As I stated before, the control channel, SMS, MMS, GPRS, Edge, CDMA, GMS, PCS, etc are all data connections ever since voice went to digital. But some marketing genius decided to call it "data" plans because when it first came out, WAP wasn't actually capable of handling enough throughput to call it a real internet connection. So if you have a text and MMS plan, you can send them fine without a "data plan". They will just default to the old standard of using the control channels. If you leave your data turned on you phone and you don't have a data plan, then SMS and MMS will route to control channels while everything else will simply not be able to connect to the internet since there is no bridge connecting the control channel network to the public internet. Your apps will attempt to reach out to the public internet but the edge routers will refuse access to the internet. The apps can't access the control channels because the control channel network doesn't use TCP/IP for transport.

The result is this.... If you have a smart phone and your data is turned on and you have no data plan, you can send and receive SMS and MMS. If you turn off the data connection on the phone, you will no longer be able to send SMS or MMS but since it's part of the control panel, you'll still receive SMS and MMS. If you have a data plan and it is turned on, your phone will choose to send SMS and MMS over the public internet via a process similar to a VPN which rides the internet to the closet tower and then if the person has data, will use data to send to them. And if not, will merge onto the control channel via switching to get to the phone.

Hope that all makes sense. I know I left out some details and took some liberties to be slightly inaccurate at times for the sake of brevity. It was long enough as it is. lol

 

[Shane Harvey]

Strange, My old HTC wildfire sent and received MMS images flawlessly with data quite definitely turned off. I never turn on data as I'm on a prepaid Telstra plan that charges $1 per MB. It once cost me $50 in less than hour when I forgot to turn it off. This has only been a problem for me since I got my windows phone. My guess is HTC Android phones ignore or work around the data off setting.

 

[mikedean2]

Hello i figured out how to get mms picture message working without data. i have a Android Samsung galaxey s4 here is the site.

https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...l%23%21%2Fwireless%2FKM1062162&token=P6DfvISq

scroll to the bottom where it says smartphones

 

[Just brenda]

Hi, I have a Lumia 520 on AT&T with no data package. When the phone first booted I checked the box to NOT use a data connection. Everything works great except I cannot send or receive picture messages. I've tried various internet and APN settings I've found around the web but nothing as worked. Does anyone have this working?