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+--- Thread: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone (/showthread.php?tid=69213)
SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - davester - 12-28-2008
Aaagh! My head is spinning. There are too many options/choices.
The problem: I've promised my daughter an iPhone combo b'day/xmas gift. She is an avid texter, and I've just found out that unlimited texting is $20 additional a month. This is beyond absurd and unacceptable.
It turns out that there are a few posts here and there about using AIM, Fring, Pinger or other service/software to do texting using chat, not SMS. Does anybody understand all the different options and whether it is really feasible to eliminate SMS by using one of these instead? If so, how? Are there disadvantages to using these services? Can you use them 100% to eliminate SMS?
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Black Landlord - 12-28-2008
Hope someone else has a definitive answer for you-- but you're going to need to get at least the $5/200 pack because she's not going to be able to stop people from texting her.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - GGD - 12-28-2008
Any idea of what her actual average message counts are, both outgoing and incoming?
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Gareth - 12-28-2008
If Apple's "push" data service actually worked the way you'd think it would, then maybe such apps would be more appealing. I've only used AIM, and when you switch apps from AIM, you get logged out, and thus you won't get any new messages. Plus, other phones can't send messages to your AIM account unless they have a message to respond to.
Which brings up the other problem, her friends are just going to text her phone (it's unlikely you can get them all to do otherwise), so you'll likely need a texting plan just to cover that, even if you can get her to use another app/service to respond.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Black Landlord - 12-28-2008
"avid texter" = at least 600 texts/mo.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - GGD - 12-28-2008
Black Landlord wrote:
"avid texter" = at least 600 texts/mo.
If that's the case, then "Unlimited" may be overkill, and the $15 1500 Message plan might be cheaper.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Black Landlord - 12-28-2008
GGD wrote:
[quote=Black Landlord]
"avid texter" = at least 600 texts/mo.
If that's the case, then "Unlimited" may be overkill, and the $15 1500 Message plan might be cheaper.
I could be way off (I'm not the OP)
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - davester - 12-28-2008
I think she's right at 1500 messages/month. Besides, saving $5/mo isn't the big part of the deal. I've heard that you can enable sms blocking on your account. If she can do that and notify her friends of her sms address that goes to the AIM account, they can just respond there and all would be good. One question...do they charge both for the incoming and outgoing text message? It's equally absurd that they would charge for incoming, since you have no protection against spam, but I'm guessing they do it, essentially doubling their profit.
This really is a scam. It adds $480 to the cost of the phone. Just on principle I want to find a way around it. An SMS message uses only a tiny fraction of the bandwidth needed to send a phone call or email with picture. Pure profit, nothing more.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Black Landlord - 12-28-2008
davester wrote:
One question...do they charge both for the incoming and outgoing text message?
This really is a scam.
Yes/yes.
Re: SMS fee avoidance on iPhone - Black Landlord - 12-28-2008
http://www.google.com/search?q=class+action+att+text+message&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a