HELP! Is It Possible to Text Via Wi-Fi When Out of US?
My daughter is in Mexico visiting here mom and she has a iphone 4 on Sprint. Is there a way she can send me texts back home to the US using wifi only and without charges? I checked Sprints international data rate and it was crazy expensive. The Sprint rep said any texts sent on wifi would still use data? Is that correct? If possible, could someone give me the steps to make it work please? Thinking airplane setting has something to do with this, but my iphone knowledge is very limited. Many thanks!
turn on airplane mode to disable cellular, then enable wifi, and use imessage or google voice
Airplane mode will disable wifi. Turn "Data Roaming" to OFF to make sure you don't use any expensive cellular data.
<edit: wrong - you can reenable wifi after going to airplane mode - it depends if you want voice calls to continue to work or not>
I would avoid using iMessage because if it doesn't work it will fall back to using SMS which will ding you.
<edit: you can get around this>
You can send text messages to a phone over Wifi using the Skype or Google Voice iPhone apps.
<edit: only necessary if you can't use iMessage for whatever reason>
Airplane mode will disable wifi. Turn "Data Roaming" to OFF to make sure you don't use any expensive cellular data.
As stated already you can turn WiFi back on after turning Airplane mode on, on iOS 4 and later because they started allowing WiFi on flights.
Originally Posted by agraham
I would avoid using iMessage because if it doesn't work it will fall back to using SMS which will ding you.
Settings-->Messages-->Send As SMS
Turn this off and it will stop auto sending iMessages as SMS... Then as long as the chat bubble is blue you are ONLY using iMessage...
Originally Posted by agraham
You can send text messages to a phone over Wifi using the Skype or Google Voice iPhone apps.
True but then the person receiving the message gets them via SMS from a strange number, and there is a lot of setup.
My daughter is in Mexico visiting here mom and she has a iphone 4 on Sprint. Is there a way she can send me texts back home to the US using wifi only and without charges? I checked Sprints international data rate and it was crazy expensive. The Sprint rep said any texts sent on wifi would still use data? Is that correct? If possible, could someone give me the steps to make it work please? Thinking airplane setting has something to do with this, but my iphone knowledge is very limited. Many thanks!
Use email to send messages via Wi-Fi. Each iPhone user has a free iCloud account which has email as one of the features. Using iMessage requires that both sender and recipient have iPhones running iOS 5 and both have a data connection. See this link for the appropriate email gateways: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways
Use the MMS gateway to allow longer messages. The iPhone sends all messages to email addresses as MMS anyway.
Update: she downloaded Line2 for free wifi calling/texting. They have a free 1 week trial and it's working well..it has excellent call quality too and bonus mms if sending to another Line2 user. Thanks everybody for your suggestions and help!
In looking at At&t's texting plans, this Line2 app at $9.99 a month seems to be a good deal. Further looking shows other apps offer free downloads: Truphone, Textplus, etc.
How is AT&T involved? I thought that you said your daughter had a Sprint iPhone.
Sorry for the confusion, my mistake. I was comparing At&t's texting plan (my 3gs was on At&t) which is pretty expensive. And yes, she has the 4 on Sprint.
Update: she downloaded Line2 for free wifi calling/texting. They have a free 1 week trial and it's working well..it has excellent call quality too and bonus mms if sending to another Line2 user. Thanks everybody for your suggestions and help!
In looking at At&t's texting plans, this Line2 app at $9.99 a month seems to be a good deal. Further looking shows other apps offer free downloads: Truphone, Textplus, etc.
Be advised that Line2 will switch to cellular data and cellular calling unless the phone is in airplane mode with Wi-Fi enabled.
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Originally Posted by overdrive31
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