Curious problems with sending texts over WiFi
Hi everyone, I've searched through other threads and can't seem to find a resolution to my issue, I'm hoping someone can help.
In short, my new iPhone 12 struggles with sending (but not apparently receiving) text messages. To whomever I'm texting, sometimes the text will go through without issue. Sometimes it will say "Not Delivered" after it tries. Sometimes it actually isn't delivered, although sometimes when it says "Not Delivered", it actually HAS been delivered.
This issue seems to occur when sending to groups or to individuals, or to those with iphones or android. It seems to happen about 75% of the time when I try to send pictures (and perhaps about 85% failure rate when I try to send a picture and a text at the same time, or, if I try to send one text before the previous one has been delivered. It has a failure rate of about 30% for just text messages. Sometimes after several tries, it will go through, sometimes not. My wife's iPhone 11 doesn't struggle at all, and I understand that sometimes my texted pictures either come through more blurry than they should be, or at a different size/resolution.
I think the main issue is that I live in an area that has no cellular reception: whenever I end up driving somewhere that has cellular reception I don't have any problems... all of my texts and pictures go through. Instead, we have a strong WiFi signal at my house. I understand that there are some complicated issues with trying to send texts to non-iPhones over only WiFi, but this doesn't explain why my wife's phone can do it with no problems, nor does it explain why sometimes these will go through without issue even on my phone (without the "Not Delivered" message). It also doesn't explain why sometimes my phone says "Not Delivered" when in fact it has been delivered.
Currently, I have "Wi-Fi Calling" on, and don't seem to have any issues with phone conversations. I have also experimented with all 8 combinations of iMessage, "Send as SMS", and "MMS Messaging" being either on or off. My "Low Quality Mode" is turned off (which, as I understand it, would send certain pictures at lower resolution--so I think I'm trying to send pictures with normal resolution). I would understand that perhaps the issue might be sending too much data at once--but even short texts don't go through all the time. I'm certain that my WiFi is consistently working, since otherwise our other devices wouldn't work.
Can anyone suggest something else to try? Is it possible my phone is defective? Would this be something I need to contact my carrier (AT&T) about? In particular, I don't have the 5G plan, although even if I did and even if I had cell reception where I live, 5G isn't available where I live.
Thanks for reading through my issue, I'll be curious to hear about any suggestions people have.
