SMS coming over as MMS (U.S. T-Mobile)

[Guest soccerwrek]

I think someone else may have mentioned having a similar problem, but here is the specific problem I was having and how it got resolved.

I have a .NET program that sends an automated message to my SmartPhone using my @tmomail.net account on a regular basis. At some point, these messages were no longer coming over as a SMS message, but rather as a MMS message. My phone would then try to download them to no avail. T-Mobile in the U.S. has had a few reports of this and is trying to resolve this, but the immediate work around is to have T-Mobile disable Picture Messaging. Thinking back, my problems started about the time I enabled picture messaging. :roll:

Anyway, my hunch is that the problem is related to T-Mobile's ability to parse the e-mail correctly because I can send an email message to my phone using a standard email client (e.g. Outlook, Eudora) and it works fine. My program that automatically sends a message to my phone is using the SmtpServer component in .NET. After looking at the headers of the email messages sent via Outlook and the SmtpServer component in .NET, there are a few subtle differences in the MIME content.

Hope this helps anyone else having similar problems...

[Guest nickcornaglia]

Just an FYI....when I had this problem, I received a $600 phone bill with 10,000 text messages listed.

TMobile continually tries to send the messages over and over and over and....

The bill was excused when I told them the problem which they were unaware of.

I used to have TMobile look at my pop3 account and send me a text message everytime a new email was received. I never resolved the problem, instead, subscribed to the unlimited data plan and just retreived the mail automatically. A much better solution for me.

[Guest soccerwrek]

That doesn't make sense to me why your bill would be so high. I mean a malicious person could send you tons of MMS messages jacking up your bill (albeit you could probably track them down).

I thought receiving text messages (and I assumed MMS) was not billed, but the sending of SMS and MMS from your phone was.

[Guest nickcornaglia]

Depends on your plan. At the time...I was on the old billing.

500 text messages.

Limited GPRS.

When you are on limited text messaging....you pay for incoming AND outgoing. I'm now on unlimited text messaging for $2.99/month under Verizon (using the i600). And there is no MMS client on the phone.