AT&T MMS without data plan

First time poster, long-time lurker. Blackberry addict/salesman since my 7230 in '03.

I know this is touched on quite a bit, but my situation is pretty specific, so I want to break it down and see what the general consensus is. I am on an AT&T Family Plan. I had a data block on the line which was just removed, and Pay-Per-Use data added. I do NOT have a Blackberry data plan (laid off, so I can't afford the $30/month anymore), and I never have on this device. It's an unlocked T-Mobile 8220 using the newest beta OS 4.6.0.278 (which by the way works GREAT!). I have no APN or TCP settings dialed in, as I was afraid of data overages when I set up my Wi-Fi hotspot browser, which is working great when I am connected to my router. I know that unfortunately AT&T doesn't offer a Blackberry Feature Enabler like T-Mo, so:

My question is, how can I send and receive MMS messages, still use the internet on Wi-Fi, and not wind up with any data overages?

Would I need TCP/APN settings, and would the fact that my browser is set up as a hotspot browser be enough to prevent my browser from connecting when outside my wireless network? I do not want to be able to connect to the internet when not on my router!

Since this is an unlocked T-Mobile phone, and has never had an AT&T Blackberry plan tied to it, does it have the required service books needed to send and receive MMS?

Do I need to add then remove a Blackberry data plan?

Any input on this would be very helpful. I'm just so tired of having this conversation:

Them: "I'll just send you a picture message."
Me: "Sorry, I cant get picture messages."
Them: "But you have unlimited text, and you have that [I]fancy Blackberry[I]"

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to being a member of this community and sharing my experience with others as well.

Dave

UPDATE: Well, after the Pay-Per-Use data was added, I rebooted the device and instead of being greeted with the usual 'GSM', I now had a lowercase 'edge'. I knew that was good, so I decided to enter some APN settings. I used the 'isp.cingular' setting and was able to successfully send a picture to my MySpace upload email address. I have yet to receive any messages, and a message sent to myself was not received. I have also tried to email myself at the XXXXXXXXXX@mmsDOTattDOTnet address and have not received that as well. I also don't know if I'm being charged for this. MySpace app does not work, so I don't seem to have full internet. Now I'm even more confused!

UPDATE 2: Added the Blackberry data plan and registered with the wireless network and received all the service books, and of course got the registration message and the uppercase 'EDGE', yet I still can't receive MMS! And I have both the service books!!! Needless to say, I called back and put it back on the pay-per-use. I cant figure this out! PLEASE HELP!!!

UPDATE 3: I found these instructions on replacing all the service books with the correct AT&T service books here on another post which I found used for the 8220 as well, and STILL NOTHING!!! WTF!! I'm not going to be able to sleep until I resolve this and my 3-month-old will be awake in a few hours. HELP!!!

WOW!

Well, for starters, "they" are correct. MMS does not fall under "data" it is a text message. It is nothing more than being able to receive a picture in your text messages.

The BlackBerry Data plan covers you being able to browse the internet, download applications, ringtones, themes, use BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) and receive email.

Text is 160 characters being sent form one phone to another. In some cases, a picture (MMS).

When you send a picture you cannot select the send a text message. you have to use the send an MMS to be able to send a picture.

I do not believe that you can use wifi to send text messages. text messages use your servic plan.

I have an iPhone through AT&T that is disconnected. I have wifi on it. I CANNOT send text messages on it because I do not have service with AT&T.

The same goes for text and MMS with any provider. You have to use your service plan to send text messages.

I hope this help you out, or atleast sends you in the right direction.

If I am incorrect in what I said, then someone please correct me.

msblueline

I was typing out a full response then i noticed someone beat me to it. Oh well....I concur.

Msblue, thank you for your detailed response, but it didn't really hit the spot. I know that I cannot use wifi to send MMS, and I'm not trying to. I want to send MMS without the BlackBerry data plan. I was successful at both sending and receiving at about 4AM this morning by enabling 'wap push' and 'MDS push', and it worked for a while. Then I woke up, tried it, and now neither work! I still can't figure this out!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Come on. I know someone has a suggestion here!

Originally Posted by IrocD

Come on. I know someone has a suggestion here!

well i dont know on At&T but my messages package on tmobile covers the SMS as well as MMS and wont use data plan in fact i could choose not to have a data plan like i used to when i had a motorola krzr v1 and i was able to send mms no data charges... now AT&T are always so stingy they may play a different tune. MY suggestion fork out the extra dough for the data plan ...what good is a bb phone without full time conectivity is beyond me... is like having a Sidekick without a data/text included plan and just use it for calls, its overkill... sorry but thats how i see it.

IrocD, Have you tried calling AT&T customer service to see what you need to do?

Yup. They told me that they couldn't support my grey market device, and then suggested the $30/month data plan. Typical CSBS.

Want to be really confused? I have a 8310 curve.
My sister has an 8310 Curve.

I HAD the blackberry data plan and all was right with the world.
I dropped the blackberry data plan.
I can no longer send MMS.

My sister has never had the blackberry data plan.
She can send MMS all she wants.



wtf.


Same thing with AT&T. They told me that all data from a blackberry has to travel over the blackberry internet service, and if I didn't have that I couldn't use MMS.

You guys are correct in that SMS does not use data. But MMS, DOES use data.

In fact a ways back if you did not have a Data plan, but DID have text messaging, and tried to send an MMS message, you would be charged for the data use in sending the picture / sound / whatever.


Oh well. AT&T's ticked me off enough that I'm seriously considering leaving and going to sprint with their $100 EVERYTHING plan instead of this $100 voice + $20 text + $30 data + $10 GPS, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...


I'm happy. Are you? :)

I have since caved and bought the data plan. However, MMS was working and is possible. I can help troubleshoot if necessary.

i had an 8300 and had a data plan; i could send and receive MMS however once i canceled I could no longer send or recieve MMS even though i paid for unlimited SMS and picture messaging with ATT, they told me I HAD to have a BB data plan to use MMS. if things have changed please respond I am getting the 8900 tomo without data plan for now

Well, I've been communicating with them over email for the last week.
Here are excerpts from the last two emails I received.

Here's the next to last thing they told me:

A data feature is required in order to be able to send/receive picture
and video messages. You will not be billed for any data that is
transferred for picture or video messages. However, any additional
browsing on your phone would be billed as regular data usage. Currently your usage indicates a Blackberry 8310 on your account. This would
require a Blackberry Personal package for $30 per month. Please reply if
you would like to add this package.

I replied and told them to just disregard my request, as I am not going to pay $30/month on top of my $20/month for messaging just to be able to send MMS, which according to their site is included in the $20/month unlimited messaging.

They came back with:

I have reviewed your inquiry and we do have the data pay per use feature that will bill $.01 per kb. This feature is only billed if the data is
used on the phone. You can reply to this email if you want to have the
data pay per use feature added.

So.... Victory?
I'm a little worried that my phone might transfer some data without me knowing. That's $10.24 a mb! Though my sister doesn't seem to have this problem.

I've gone ahead and told them to add the pay-per-use feature to my plan. We'll see how it goes. Usually takes them a while to respond to emails.

It doesn't trust me as long as you don't use the media net browser or any apps.

Well. Again AT&T totally fails.

Here's what I just received from them after telling them to go ahead and add the plan:

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail AT&T regarding data and
multimedia messaging on the Blackberry device. My name is Laura
Yandell, and I can definitely help you with your inquiry.

I apologize for any confusion regarding the data services. The pay per
use feature is not compatible with the Blackberry device. In order to
have access to the internet and MMS, you will need to add the Blackberry
Personal package.

You can add a feature through your MyWireless Account as well. Here are
the steps for adding or deleting a feature to your account by using
MyWireless Account.

I'm telling you. Early termination fee is looking AWFULLY good right now. This has just aggravated me extremely. No you can't, Yes you can, no you can't, by the way we're completely ignoring the fact that there are indeed blackberries on our service without blackberry plans that are working fine, we'll just ignore that you said that and provided us with proof.

Oh, and since this started. Their link to the customer satisfaction survey gives me a page that says:

AT&T is continually working to improve our internet site for our customers. As part of this ongoing effort, we are currently doing maintenance. We apologize for this inconvenience and ask that you please try back again later.

And we're going on weeks now. I call BS. They just don't want to have their unhappy customers fill out the survey so they can pad their numbers, just like artificially inflating their stupid 'more bars in more places' crap.

Totally fed up so much so that I'm driving to the nearest AT&T store at lunch and cancelling my contract. I'm gladly going to pay the early termination to get rid of these people. thanks for being a customer since 2002 my ****.

One thing to double check tha there is a MMS feature added to the account, I have had customers in the past that were unable to send/rec MMS and that was fixed by adding the MMS SOC, even though it is included with your SMS plan it doesn't always get turned on

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by IrocD

I have since caved and bought the data plan. However, MMS was working and is possible. I can help troubleshoot if necessary.

Iroc-D, I have the exact same problem (with an unlocked 8220) that you at the start of this thread but with half of the technical know-how to try to fix this. You said that you got the MMS working before you got the Blackberry Data Plan. Can you explain how you did this? Thanks.

Chris.

Nevermind. I just installed the latest OS and all is well in the MMS world.

Hello All-
New to the forums here at CB. I have been reading many places on the web about receiving picture messages on a blackberry without a data plan. I have the Bold and recently turned the data off simply because I didn't feel I used the web enough to justify its cost. I am in college so I am trying to save money where I can. Anyhow some of you have mentioned that a new OS has solved the problem? If this will solve it how do I go about doing this? Please let me hear your suggestions! I appreciate your help in advance.

This is my first post here, but I wanted to share some great incite I received from a TMobile rep yesterday.

I have a 8100 Pearl and dropped the data plan some time ago. I called up to complain that I couldn't send or recieve MMS messages even though I had the text plan that includes MMS, in plan language.

She explained that a "feature" of blackberries (and other smartphones) is that they use the data network to send and receive MMS messages. If I had a regular phone like a Razor or such it would work just fine. (I complained some more). Then she told me they had a fix to make blackberries send MMS messages over the regular cell network.

A) You have to upgrade your device to at least 4.2.1 or later to take advantage of this. I had to upgrade and it went fine.
If you are tmobile you can get the latest from www . t-mobile . com / bbupgrade (Can't post the actual link, you'll have to fix it in your browser, really crackberry?)

You will have to install the latest desktop manager first. Tether your BB, backup your BB, then double click the exe for your upgraded BB OS. Your PC will reboot and install the new BB OS on your phone.

B) Once you have upgraded your phone, pull the battery and the SIM chip.
Reinsert the battery with no SIM chip (I know, but it worked!!)
Let the phone boot up fully.
Pull the battery.
Reinsert the SIM chip and the battery.

C) This process pushes the service books for MMS over to the cell network and off the BB data network.

It was that simple, now I can send/recieve MMS picture messages with no data plan.

Hope that helps explain why and how to fix it.

Originally Posted by Britar

B) Once you have upgraded your phone, pull the battery and the SIM chip.
Reinsert the battery with no SIM chip (I know, but it worked!!)
Let the phone boot up fully.
Pull the battery.
Reinsert the SIM chip and the battery.

C) This process pushes the service books for MMS over to the cell network and off the BB data network.

It was that simple, now I can send/recieve MMS picture messages with no data plan.

Hope that helps explain why and how to fix it.

So If I already have the latest OS, this is all I have to do??