Moto X US Cellular - sms vs mms Issue

[Kristina Steves]

Hi everyone,

I am new to android phone and am so overwhelmed by it all lol.
My daughter and I got the same phone on the same day and we are both having issues sending pictures and the phone seems to wants to convert all text messages to mms regardless if it is to one person on more. We are both using wifi but I have noticed that both wifi and 4G are running at all times. Is that normal?
I did go into the settings and turn off the group messaging and since then the whole text issues are off and on. Some texts (those that are more than two lines long) are switched to mms and shorter ones seem to go out normally. Shouldn't this phone just know what to do on it's own without messing around with turning on and off wifi as I saw on another post?

Thank you

 

[Aquila]

The Moto X shows the 4G icon even when WiFi is on, however it's typically grayed out. It will use your mobile data to send MMS messages, but almost every other task should default to WiFi if that is available. For your texting question, that's a new one to me. Will defer to experts on that one.

 

[Kristina Steves]

Thanks for responding NothingIsTrue. We are still having problems sending pics out or larger text messages out but it seems to be off and on.

 

[JudH]

SMS101

The SMS protocol specifies a maximum length of 160 text characters. That's ALL that can be sent in one SMS.

A longer message can be split into multiple specially formatted messages, I.e. text is added to say 1 of 3--when the SMS app/software on the receiving end sees 3 messages in that format arrive in sequence it puts the pieces back together. That's the standard. What really happens when you exceed 160 chars depends on the messaging app. It can send them as multi-part SMS *OR* it can convert the message to an MMS. The point where it switches to MMS varies between apps but will usually be between 3 to 5 messages I.e. 480 to 800 characters. A few apps will even have an option in preferences where you can change that point or even disable it. I use ChompSMS and it has a counter in the lower right corner that shows what it is doing like "12/160(1)" meaning 12 chars remaining out of 160 in 1 SMS. Type 13 chars and it will say 146/147(2) meaning 146 chars to go in two 147 char blocks (the missing chars are reserved for the "1 of x etc" strings). Look to see if your app has an indicator like that.

Once it switches to MMS the indicator shows that. Also, any time you insert a picture or anything other than text the app will switch to MMS since it can't send it via SMS.

Hope that clarifies things.