Three charging for Texts smileys on Sony phones

Nereis

There is an app called 'handscent' available on android which is analternative text messaging app. It still sends texts and the other phone doesnt have to have handscent to recieve the text, it just comes through as normal. But handscent has the option to disable the 'convert to mms' thing that happens when you send more than one text. If you google handscent convert to mms there are plenty of guides telling you how to do this. It may also work for your sniley problem although i dont have any experience of that. Hope this helps.

cgk1

Three's explanation is absolute bunk - As Rusty has said, all that is happing is that the handset text app is displaying certain character combinations as smiles on the phone, it's still just sending the characters in the messages - if it wasn't - then the person receiving the message would find that they had an attachment with the image of a smiley attached to it.

mutley74

sillygoose wrote: »

Would the greyed out settings not become available if you got it unlocked? you could then knobble the mms settings? just a thought.

option is greyed out on my Sony Ericsson Arc S. Three said they cant do anything and no software upgrade available, hence they see it as chargeable thing. Phone still under contract and Three store did not agree whith Three CS when i spoke to them last month. I dont really care just get annoyed with the randon extra charges i am getting incurred for no fault of my own.

jb66

three are in the right, your phone is converting the smiley into a graphic and sending it as an mms picture message, you need to speak to sony

DUTR

jb66 wrote: »

three are in the right, your phone is converting the smiley into a graphic and sending it as an mms picture message, you need to speak to sony

Disagree, I think the OP is doing something wrong, I have a Sony and all be it on O2, never heard anything quite so ridiculous, only thing I can think of is if there is some 3 bloatware glitch on his handset.
The OP can see on his bill where the mms is supposed to have been sent to, with the time, so he can check this against the phone records to see if (a) he has replied to an MMS (b) he has actually sent an MMS, IIRC on my Satio there were no emoticons, not sure if ther arc is the same? and hence why including the emoticons is not as he hopes :eek:

mutley74

DUTR wrote: »

Disagree, I think the OP is doing something wrong, I have a Sony and all be it on O2, never heard anything quite so ridiculous, only thing I can think of is if there is some 3 bloatware glitch on his handset.
The OP can see on his bill where the mms is supposed to have been sent to, with the time, so he can check this against the phone records to see if (a) he has replied to an MMS (b) he has actually sent an MMS, IIRC on my Satio there were no emoticons, not sure if ther arc is the same? and hence why including the emoticons is not as he hopes :eek:

I never got any additional charges when using my phone when i took out contract in January. Only noticed a few months laters a few extra pounds each month. I have checked the texts back being charged in my phone history and it appears quite random what is charged and not. Its definitely not use of smileys. I dont send picture messages or anything else.

DUTR

mutley74 wrote: »

I never got any additional charges when using my phone when i took out contract in January. Only noticed a few months laters a few extra pounds each month. I have checked the texts back being charged in my phone history and it appears quite random what is charged and not. Its definitely not use of smileys. I dont send picture messages or anything else.

Is there emoticons on your handset as standard?
I suspect the app that allows them inserts a small jpg/gif which would then convert the message to mms, that said the handset alerts that the message will be an MMS.
I know one of my friends if I send her an MMS and she replies to it even with just text, it sends the reply as an MMS, she is on orange with a Nokia handset.

diamonds

Modern mobiles may not display a mms in a thread of messages, replying to such mms will default to a mms being sent. In the USA all texts/mms are charged the same and following the Apple thread format across OS's resulted in the same, in Europe there are two different charges for sms & mms.

MMS can be data intensive at your per MB rate thats why there is a flat charge as MMS predate 3G (and the reduction in mobile internet costs)


Frankly anyone who has a data allowance should not be getting charged for mms at xx pence per mms, its uploading data afterall.

MMS delivery/receipt is just like email but to a mobile, given mobiles have email capacity now MMS should be charged per MB/data bundle and free download.

Dont expect that to change though, its a source of revenue for the networks, one in the last couple of years that has made them billions since 3G.

mutley74

DUTR wrote: »

Is there emoticons on your handset as standard?
I suspect the app that allows them inserts a small jpg/gif which would then convert the message to mms, that said the handset alerts that the message will be an MMS.
I know one of my friends if I send her an MMS and she replies to it even with just text, it sends the reply as an MMS, she is on orange with a Nokia handset.

im just using the standard texting app that came with the phone for SMS.

Tony5101

Certain symbols do trigger the text to be sent as an mms.
For example, on my WP7 phone, I can send to signify a heart. When it arrives on my wife's WP7 phone it is displayed correctly as a heart shaped icon.
However...on my android, there is a specific smiley which looks like a heart, but by selecting it..the text automatically changes to an mms.
If you're texting quickly it would be quite easy to miss, but there are definite changes to the text/mms screen to alert of the change.