Q: The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

No, I didn't say anything at all about SMS. SMS uses the cell voice network only.

Billing statements mean nothing. The iPhone didn't even have MMS when it was first released.

Chris CA,

Wikipedia:

"MMS does not utilize one's own operator maintained data plan to distribute multimedia content."

Did the wikipedia article specifically reference the iPhone?

deggie,

Good question... no it didn't.   I'm not eve sure the Wikipedia quote is correct.  It looked kind-of stuffed in as an extra thought.

But I did double check with AT&T to make sure MMS was unlimited and "free".  See a copy of the chat here:

My AT&T cell phone plan has unlimited text.  Does that mean unlimited SMS and unlimited MMS?

Thank you for your patience! Your AT&T Representative will be with you shortly.

Welcome! You are now chatting with 'Jane Smith'

Jane Smith: Hi John! let me check your so that I can give the correct answer

John Doe: OK... thanks

Jane Smith: You are so much welcome ^^

Jane Smith: Thank you for patiently waiting, you have Mobile Share Value Plan 10GB, Unlimited Talk & Text for mobile to any mobile even for landline calling, mobile hotspot,and bundled with unlimited text from USA to 190 countries internationally. Yes you have unlimited SMS AND MMS John...

John Doe: OK.. thanks for the clarification.

Jane Smith: You are so much welcome,

John Doe: I was discussing this with others and they were thinking that SMS was unlimited but MMS was part of the 10GB data plan.

Jane Smith: Cool! well yes it  is ^^ by the way I looked at your bill charges, and I saw international call charges by the line 8383..

Jane Smith: For $16.60... did you know this call?

John Doe: Yes... I know... my son in Germany.

Jane Smith: Oh I see,

John Doe: Yes... But he is worth it. We only call him a few times per year

Jane Smith: Okay then, that's perfect... connections through text and call really means a lot...

John Doe: So to clarify again.... MMS is not charged against my 10GB?

Jane Smith: Correct!

Jane Smith: Any carrier you text and call no additional charge.

Jane Smith: Unlimited texting to Germany as well.

John Doe: :-)   thanks

Jane Smith: You are so much welcome John, anything else? like on your bill? Internet serviceS?

John Doe: Thanks... that's all

John Doe: bye

Jane Smith: Bye,, take care..

Your AT&T representative has closed the chat session.

Then you have nothing to worry about using your data plan, but sending or receiving on your iPhone does use cell data. Billing and how it works is an entirely different thing. Easy way to test this: turn WiFi off on your iPhone, turn cell data off and try to send someone a picture.

deggie,

Well... just finished reading a few hundred postings on this issue...

What a huge number of people want but cannot have is a way to "turn cell-data off but leave MMS on".

There is no way to do this on an iPhone.  If you want to have MMS turned on then you leave yourself open to random cell-data usage that you have no control over.

If Apple wanted to build the best smart phone they would figure out how to do that.

Having cell data on for MMS is true on most smartphones I don't know of any way that Apple could work around this.

Since Apple has had MMS I've had it on and never had it use up my data. It is possible that AT&T does not bill my data plan for MMS, I've never paid enough attention to see if this is true or not.

I've not seen that "huge number of people" want to be able to turn off MMS for cell-data. I've seen a hundred or so people on ASC, maybe, but given the number of iPhones out there that is not a "huge number of people". Given the 300k limit on picture size someone would have to send and receive a LOT of pictures before they would seriously dent their cell data allotment. If they are sending that many they should really find another means to do so.

You can still buy non-smartphones that will have unlimited SMS/MMS and will not use cell data as they are designed for this. Smartphones are designed to take advantage of cell data.

I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill based on erroneous information provided to one person by an AT&T first level responder. You could send/receive 100 pictures and that would be 30MB assuming AT&T does bill cell data for this. It would take a thousand to get to 300MB. As I said if you are sending that many you really need to look at another means to share them.

Why don't you call AT&T back and specifically as them when using an iPhone and not connected to WiFi are you billed for MMS messages that include pictures?

deggie,

OK... maybe I was being hyperbolic... but, it seems totally reasonable that people would like to turn off cell-data but leave MMS on...  MMS is free.

No one should be concerned about how much they use MMS... it is "Free".

Cell-data is not free.  It goes for $15 per GB on overages.

Individuals not-infrequently get close to overrunning their cell-data plans and they want to turn off cell-data to keep from being charged for running over their data limit.  But they want to continue to use free, unlimited MMS.

Again, you are confusing billing with technology. SMS uses cell voice. MMS uses cell data. If AT&T says you are charged for MMS it is because how they are billing it, it has nothing to do with which system you are using.

With your iPhone in order to use MMS you must have cell data on. Period. If AT&T doesn't charge you for that great. Call them and ask. But if you turn off cell data you won't be able to use it. There is no MMS that doesn't use cell data on the iPhone or pretty much every smartphone. On non-smartphones you are using a special setup for cell data.

deggie,

Here is a definition I found that says MMS is part of the "telephone network" and is not part of the "cellular data network":

The Cellular Network

Broadly speaking, your iPhone can communicate two ways via the cellular network:

• Telephony – This includes your cellular telephone calls and your text messages (text-only messaging is called SMS, for Short Message Service, whereas photo and video messaging is called MMS, for Multimedia Messaging Service). Note, though, that cellular messaging is not the same as Apple's iMessage service, which is a data – not telephony – service, but can use the cellular network nonetheless.

• Data – Think of this as computer data transmitted via the Internet and facilitated through your cellular service provider. This does not include standard telephony and SMS/MMS messaging services. It refers to everything else – all other data – received and transmitted by your device: email, Apple iMessages, FaceTime, VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) such as Skype, web content, weather reports, push notifications, app and music downloads, iCloud backups, and much more. In a related matter, it is important to note that many apps allow you to disable their reliance on the cellular network to transfer data, all in an effort to reduce usage charges.

Both cellular telephony and cellular data services are propagated to and from your iPhone via the provider's cellular network, named after the cell antenna towers which dot the countryside and the cells or geographical area covered by a particular tower. Data – the bits and bytes – that are moved via the cellular network is called cellular data.

Cellular data usage is measured, and subsequently invoiced for, in units of data size or quantity, i.e.; megabytes and gigabytes of data per month. This measurement is often loosely referred to as bandwidth. Cellular telephony is metered in minutes of telephone time, whereas messages are quantified by the number of messages sent.

I found that definition at:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how-to-manage-your-iphone-cellular-and-wi -fi-usage-while-traveling-abroad

If it is on the internet it HAS to be correct!

:-)

truerock wrote:

 

Chris CA,

 

Wikipedia:

 

"MMS does not utilize one's own operator maintained data plan to distribute multimedia content."

Yeah, that's pretty much what I wrote.

MMS uses the data path on a cell network but it is not charged as data. It is charged as a message.

You cannot send MMS without a data connection.

Chris CA,

Sorry... I disagree with your comment.  What I am reading from various sources is that MMS uses the telephony network.  MMS does not use the cell data network.

I'm still researching this.

truerock wrote:

 

Chris CA,

 

Sorry... I disagree with your comment.

Okay.

What I am reading from various sources is that MMS uses the telephony network. 

Where have you seen this?

As Deggie suggested, turn off cell data and try to send an MMS.

Chris CA,

Look back 2 messages.  I posted a quote that said:

"• Data – Think of this as computer data transmitted via the Internet and facilitated through your cellular service provider. This does not include standard telephony and SMS/MMS messaging services."

A cell phone has 3 voice radios: 2G, 3G and 4G

A cell phone has 3 data radios:  2G, 3G, 4G

That's 6 radios.

I think I'm having trouble tracking down exactly how MMS is handled because it has changed.  I think what I am seeing is that in the days of 2G, MMS was sent out over voice radios.  Now that the idea of separate voice radios is starting to become an obsolete idea, I think perhaps MMS might be moving to the data radios.  I think this is possible because MMS is completely separate from Voice, SMS and cell-data.  MMS has its own infrastructure separated at the point that cell towers transmit the separate radio signals back to regional locations.  MMS uses regional computer servers isolated from other computing support.

Why the iPhone (or any smart phone) lumps MMS data and cell-data together in one on-off-switch makes no logical sense.  I'm fairly certain that if you are in a 3G cell zone that the MMS data goes over the voice radio.  I'm thinking that if you are in a 4G zone (i.e. LTE for AT&T) MMS might be going out over the cell-data-radio.

I think perhaps the main reason that MMS is now fuzzily supported between voice and data radios is because of this:

Dual Transfer Mode (DTM) is a protocol based on the GSM standard that makes simultaneous transfer of Circuit switched (CS) voice and Packet switched (PS) data over the same radio channel (ARFCN) simpler. 2G and 3G radios are being consolidated to a single IC to reduce cost.