I hate my MMS problems

[Guest nickcornaglia]

I have been without a smartphone for about a month and just received my new SPV today. I would have gotten (is that a word) a tanager but I figured I'd save my money until something with a bit more umpf is available.

While I didn't have my phone, I was using a cheap Motorola. And during that time, I was forwarding my email to my Comcast (POP3) email to my TMobile SMS email address so I could receive email notification.

I set my phone up today and unlocked it. I then placed a call to TMobile to turn on my GPRS again.

GPRS takes 2 to 24 hours to activiate. When it is activated...my TZones(WAP) will be deactivated.

But I am receiving every email from the past month as an MMS message that continuously tries to unsuccessfully download. I guess the forwarded emails never registered as being successful so it must have been trying for the past month to forward them...unsucessfully until now.

But I have received over 100 partial MMS messages so far and I guess my question is:

Is there anyway to stop this???

One thing I've noticed with the SPV is that you cant send an email to it's SMS email address ([email protected]) or it comes in as MMS. Maybe it's just HTML email....does anyone know?

Also, do MMS messages arrive as SMS messages first then download the MMS content via WAP or GPRS???

Last...is there anyway to completely disable MMS from my phone as I don't see what all the fuss is about and no one I know really has or uses MMS?

Once my GPRS is activated...the messages should download and these problems should go away eventually...but can anyone answer my other questions?

[Guest nickcornaglia]

I just turned my MMS Settings from Auto to Manual.

This at least stops the program from hogging up my phone.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Have you asked T-mob to deactivate MMS and teh notifications? (Try explaining you have a new phone and its recieving all messages again)

Welcome back to the club btw ;p

[Guest nickcornaglia]

Mono...thanks for the welcome back...but I feel like I never left.

How could I have been such a fool and thing that I could live life without my SPV?? Well, it's back and better than the first. (No scratches!)

Thanks for the reply but could someone answer these questions from the original post. I'm trying to know a bit more about MMS before I try to resolve my problems. (By the way...94 more messages last night and my GPRS is still not activated!).

Here are the questions:

:?: One thing I've noticed with the SPV is that you cant send an email to it's SMS email address ([email protected]) or it comes in as MMS. Maybe it's just HTML email....does anyone know?

:?: Do MMS messages arrive as SMS messages first then download the MMS content via WAP or GPRS???

:?: Is there anyway to completely disable MMS from my phone as I don't see what all the fuss is about and no one I know really has or uses MMS?

:?: One of my main problems with this may be that I think T-Mobile in the US, does not actually have MMS but an extended form of SMS called EMS. Can anyone confirm this?

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

- I suspect that because you have MMS enabled, T-Mobile are sending the *@tmomail.net notifications as MMS.

- The phone is alerted of an MMS by an SMS, and then yes, it retrieves it via GPRS.

- There is currently no way to disable MMS completely (i.e. remove the MMS client) as it is in ROM.

- EMS is quite different to MMS, I suspect T-Mobile DO support MMS.

:)

P

Mono...thanks for the welcome back...but I feel like I never left.

How could I have been such a fool and thing that I could live life without my SPV?? Well, it's back and better than the first. (No scratches!)

Thanks for the reply but could someone answer these questions from the original post. I'm trying to know a bit more about MMS before I try to resolve my problems. (By the way...94 more messages last night and my GPRS is still not activated!).

Here are the questions:

:?: One thing I've noticed with the SPV is that you cant send an email to it's SMS email address ([email protected]) or it comes in as MMS. Maybe it's just HTML email....does anyone know?  

:?: Do MMS messages arrive as SMS messages first then download the MMS content via WAP or GPRS???  

:?: Is there anyway to completely disable MMS from my phone as I don't see what all the fuss is about and no one I know really has or uses MMS?  

:?: One of my main problems with this may be that I think T-Mobile in the US, does not actually have MMS but an extended form of SMS called EMS. Can anyone confirm this?

[Guest nickcornaglia]

I suspect that because you have MMS enabled, T-Mobile are sending the *@tmomail.net notifications as MMS.

Thanks for the reply.

That would be odd since I officially never had a T-Mobile MMS phone...but who knows what their criteria is. Hopefully, I'll get it all worked out today. I'll also give them a call to see if they can disable MMS for me, if that is the case!

:) Thanks.

Nick

[Guest nickcornaglia]

Remember all of the problems I was having, listed above.

I just received my 1st phone bill after receiving my new SPV.

311 Pages!!!! With over 11,000 text messages! For a total bill around $650.00 when it is usually $135.00

Who says Europeans text message more that US users???

I DO!!!! Because these are not my text messages!

T-Mobile's billing research department is still trying to figure it out after I explained what had happened but it seems to me that these are all of the multiple attempts to receive 300 email/SMS alerts attempted to be sent to my non-SPV phone OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and.......

My guess is that the SPV knows how to handle and receive HTML messages sent as text messages but the cheap Motorola 332 didn't know what to do with them so it kept rejecting them. And T-Mobile kept trying to send them. That's why I received all of my text messages for a month past as soon as I received my new SPV.

There are a couple of things wrong here.

I understand why T-Mobile charges for received text messages...but why would they charge me for failed messages?? 11,000 of them?

Why was I not able to receive these text messages on the Motorola, even if they showed up as garbage?

Why do they have to "research" this? Is it even possible to receive and read 11,000 messages in 15 or so days? I would have never been able to make a call. That's like 1 text message every 2 minutes for the entire day and night.

[Guest phishhead]

you need to call tmobile, and ask to speak to wireless data group. they can unprovision your MMS feature so you dont receive the text messages from 3000 or 5000 with all of the heiroglyphics. This happened to me after I sent some pics from a v205 then put my sim in an old motorola. It was a pain in the ass to get it fixed, but of course this was 4 months ago. Tmobile does recognize the problem now. Hopefully you should be able to get you billing straightened out. Luckily I have unlimited text messaging, so it didnt jack up my bill. I know I used to receive about 20 a day until I found someone within the WDG to figure out the problem, and I work for t-mobile. Shows you how much faith I have in my co-workers... If no one helps you with your bill, call and ask to speak to retention & say your going to cancel your service. Someone there will give you your credit...And if they don't, call back until you find someone who will...

[Guest nickcornaglia]

After about two weeks they've at least acknowledged it was their problem and my bill was reduced to $88.00 (It's normally $135.00/month).

MMS works on the SPV....just not on my crappy phone. So I shouldn't have the problem again.

I don't think they've sorted out the problem on their end...but at least it's fixed on my end.

Thanks.