Airplane mode vs Mobile Data off

[mojophone]

I had a trip to Europe scheduled and wasn't planning on getting mobile service while over there, so I was testing if texting might work while on wifi. I have a 5T on Cricket and use Textra.

At home, if I activate Airplane Mode and turn wifi on, texts will not send. If I just turn off Mobile Data but keep wifi on, texts are sent/received. When in Europe, even with wifi connected it wouldn't work either way.

My assumption was that if "mobile data" is off, that should've mimicked my environment in Europe, right? Just confused...

 

[SpookDroid]

If you didn't have mobile service in Europe...nope. SMS does not use mobile data to be sent (only MMS does). If your phone supports WiFi-Calling, then texting would work over WiFi as well (although Textra has had bugs in the past where trickery needs to be done in order for that to work properly).

Airplane mode also kills your mobile service (voice and mobile data), whereas only 'killing' mobile data still keeps the voice channel active, and that's what SMS uses.

 

[mojophone]

Airplane mode also kills your mobile service (voice and mobile data), whereas only 'killing' mobile data still keeps the voice channel active, and that's what SMS uses.

Thank you! That's the piece I was missing.