Carrier Charging Texting for iMessages

It shouldn't happen if you're actually sending iMessages. Are the speech bubbles and the send key green or blue? If they are blue, they're imessages and they go out over the data (3G or WiFi) connection. If they are green, they're SMS messages and your texting allowance will get pinged for them.

Not possible, as all iMessages are sent over WiFi or the cellular data network. Thus, there is no way for any carrier to charge for this other than cellular data usage.

The text bubbles are blue, but ATT still lists a text msg charge. I guess I'm as confused as some of you. Would appreciate any ideas. Called ATT and the customer service rep didn't have the foggiest idea what an "imessage" between iphones was and how it could not cause a text msg charge. So...

I have the same situation. On my bill, AT&T shows a .20 charge for all iMessages between my wife's iPhone 4s and mine. Obviously iMessages. How/why are they able to do this?

All iMessages go over WiFi or the 3G data network...that is if they are actually being sent as iMessages. AFAIK, no carrier has the ability in place to distinguish between what type of data is using their 3G data network...data is data to their system. Thus, I don't see how any carrier could charge for iMessages, even if they wanted to.

Carriers don't have access to the necessary API's to do so, even if they wanted.

Wjosten,

You're obviously just trying to get your post count up and you're completely wrong.

I have att and i sent all imessages (with blue button) and att still charged me for texts. I called up and had to speak to a supervisor who credited the text charges. She admitted they knew it was a problem at this point. I had her block sms messaging completely on my account so i hopefully wont get charged again when using imessage.

I think this is just another bug in ios5 like the battery drain issue.

No. wjosten is correct. iMessages go out as data, the same as e-mails, twitter messages, etc. The carrier couldn't detect what they were to bill for them if they wanted to. Unless the message is failing to deliver and reverting to an SMS (which will happen if there is a problem server side or if the recipient is off the data network for some reason) they can't tell that you're sending them in the first place.

I think the most likely explanation is that they actually ended up going as SMS messages instead of iMessages. I believe you should be notified if this happens, but you may have exited out of the messages app before you noticed.

No you're both wrong. I have both mms and sms disabled in the iphone message settings.

Perhaps you want to re read what i wrote. Att is aware of this problem as stated to me by an att supervisor.

Att believes its an issue with the imessage app itself.

Just to confirm what others are saying here. I have been charged for iMessaging @ 16p each by Vodafone UK. I'm trying to get an answer from them on why this is happening.

Surely they can't do this, can they?

I'm curious to know if there are any further updates on this? I was just reviewing my Verizon bill and see I've been charged for about 20 Imessage text messages sent between 2 current Iphones. Verizon tells me that texts between are phones are not free.

Both KiltedTim and wjosten have a lot more experience than you, so I'm inclined to believe them. And suppose you're right? The carriers have no right to charge for iMessages, so someone is in serious trouble if they are. Second, it is out of Apple's control if the carrier decides to categorize an iMessage as a text message.

A successfully sent iMessage is not even detectable by the carrier as a message. It's just one more blob of data, like web traffic, e-mail or anything else.

IF something went wrong during sending an iMessage, it would revert to SMS, which would explain the charges. I can see the possibility that there may be a bug in the system, most likely on the back end servers at Apple, that would cause it not to notify the phone of the send failure for some reason, causing it to appear to have sent as an iMessage when it was actually an SMS. I have no evidence to prove that that is, in fact, what happened. I suggest you clear the message history on both devices, make sure send as SMS is off, and do some testing.