Hi all, first let me start by saying thank you for creating this community. Having the RW Forums shut down sucks and I appreciate everyone who spent the time and money to create this and is contributing here. My wife & I have been customers with RW since the early beta testing days with the Defy XT. With all the changes DISH has made since taking over RW we need to switch carriers.
We live in the general DC region, but our neighborhood is actually in a cell dead zone. We don’t use a lot of cell data (less than 1 GB each), but are reliant on WiFi for calling and texting from home. Are there any carriers that support MMS over WiFi? I figure if someone does, they’d also have good WiFi calling & SMS over WiFi support.
It’s also time to replace both of our old phones as they’re reaching/have reached the end of their support life.
@cdiggs said:
Hi all, first let me start by saying thank you for creating this community. Having the RW Forums shut down sucks and I appreciate everyone who spent the time and money to create this and is contributing here. My wife & I have been customers with RW since the early beta testing days with the Defy XT. With all the changes DISH has made since taking over RW we need to switch carriers.
You’re welcome!
@cdiggs said:
We live in the general DC region, but our neighborhood is actually in a cell dead zone. We don’t use a lot of cell data (less than 1 GB each), but are reliant on WiFi for calling and texting from home.
There are cell dead spots even in areas one wouldn’t think due to local population. Do you know whose network is best when out about and away from home (AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon)?
@cdiggs said:
Are there any carriers that support MMS over WiFi? I figure if someone does, they’d also have good WiFi calling & SMS over WiFi support.
With the possible exception of Google Fi, no service provider I’m aware of explicitly supports MMS over WiFi. There are certain combinations of phones and providers that will provide MMS over WiFi but it’s very much a hit or miss thing.
@cdiggs said:
It’s also time to replace both of our old phones as they’re reaching/have reached the end of their support life.
Before getting into specifics regarding who might might be good alternative providers; it would help us better help you if we had an idea of what you’re looking for in new phones besides WiFi calling and text messaging. Would you consider iPhone or do you want to stick with Android? If the preference is Android, is the brand (Samsung, Motorola, etc.) important to you? What features are important (e.g. great camera, screen size). It need not be overly specific but a rough idea of how much you are prepared to spend on new phones would be helpful to know as well?
I’m signing off for the evening but didn’t want to see your inquiry go unanswered. If no one else chimes in overnight, I’ll do my best to follow-up in the morning.
There are cell dead spots even in areas one wouldn’t think due to local population. Do you know whose network is best when out about and away from home (AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon)?
I think because this is such a heavily populated area, I don’t hear people complaining about coverage anymore. Unless of course you live in a neighborhood like ours where no one gets reception, regardless of carriers. I think for us and some others, it’s a geography problem where a ravine or river prevents more homes from being built inside the dead zone, making it fiscally unattractive to the carriers to add another tower.
With the possible exception of Google Fi, no service provider I’m aware of explicitly supports MMS over WiFi. There are certain combinations of phones and providers that will provide MMS over WiFi but it’s very much a hit or miss thing.
Thank you. I’ll add Google Fi to my list of cheaper (I.E., not one of the big 3) carriers to look at. I’d love to know about other carriers that support MMS over WiFi with the right phone.
Before getting into specifics regarding who might might be good alternative providers; it would help us better help you if we had an idea of what you’re looking for in new phones besides WiFi calling and text messaging. Would you consider iPhone or do you want to stick with Android? If the preference is Android, is the brand (Samsung, Motorola, etc.) important to you? What features are important (e.g. great camera, screen size). It need not be overly specific but a rough idea of how much you are prepared to spend on new phones would be helpful to know as well?
My wife will be happy with another Pixel a-model, but she would buy other Android phones with good cameras. I’m pretty much in the same boat as her, where the Pixel a-model phones have always been nice, but I’m not locked into the brand. We don’t usually buy the top-end models, but are willing to buy in the under $500/phone line of phones.
I’m signing off for the evening but didn’t want to see your inquiry go unanswered. If no one else chimes in overnight, I’ll do my best to follow-up in the morning.
Thanks!
@cdiggs said:
I’d love to know about other carriers that support MMS over WiFi with the right phone.
For the sake of clarity, it’s not a matter of other providers supporting MMS over WiFi. It’s a matter of if it works with a particular phone great. If not, so be it. RW’s support for MMS over WiFi relied on its no longer used proprietary technology. Being able to count on MMS over WiFi made RW an outlier. As far as the industry is concerned, MMS over WiFi is insufficiently important to support. I’m not saying that’s how it should be simply reporting how it is. It’s not that RW is now worse than the rest of the industry when it comes to MMS over WiFi. It’s that RW is no longer better.
@cdiggs said:
My wife will be happy with another Pixel a-model, but she would buy other Android phones with good cameras. I’m pretty much in the same boat as her, where the Pixel a-model phones have always been nice, but I’m not locked into the brand. We don’t usually buy the top-end models, but are willing to buy in the under $500/phone line of phones.
My current daily driver is a Pixel 6a. If my recall is correct, MMS over WiFi works on the Pixel 6a with both RW 5.0 and My Choice service. I can test to be certain. Are you committed to leaving RW by DISH or would staying be an option if you had working MMS over WiFi? Also, are you using RW 5.0 plans or My Choice?
@rolandh said:
For the sake of clarity, it’s not a matter of other providers supporting MMS over WiFi. It’s a matter of if it works with a particular phone great. If not, so be it.
Thanks for trying to clear that up. Does that mean that if the phone supports MMS over WiFi, that it’ll work regardless of carrier?
@rolandh said:
My current daily driver is a Pixel 6a. If my recall is correct, MMS over WiFi works on the Pixel 6a with both RW 5.0 and My Choice service. I can test to be certain. Are you committed to leaving RW by DISH or would staying be an option if you had working MMS over WiFi? Also, are you using RW 5.0 plans or My Choice?
We’re both still on the My Choice plan, but I think we’re ready to move on from RW by DISH.
@cdiggs said:
Does that mean that if the phone supports MMS over WiFi, that it’ll work regardless of carrier?
If only it were that simple. In my experience, neither mobile network operators or phone manufacturers explicitly support MMS over WiFi. In theory, if a particular phone is supported for WiFi calling on a specific network, MMS over WIFi should be as well. The reality is it doesn’t always work out as theory would suggest. I fully appreciate this is a paradigm shift for veteran RW customers like yourself.
The above said, I’ve tested both WiFi calling and MMS over WiFi with my Pixel 6a. Both worked with the following SIMs:
Thanks @rolandh! We’re going to give Tello a shot. Mobi looks promising too, but after looking through the reviews and their sites, it just seems like Tello is a little more mature of a service right now.
For me, it would come down to whose network was best. Mobi uses Verizon. Tello uses T-Mobile. There’s also nothing saying you can’t try one, then move to the other if the first choice doesn’t work out. Both Mobi and Tello are no-contract month-to-month service providers.
Stray data point: when I was using my OnePlus 7 Pro on T-Mobile directly, I could use all features over WiFi. When I went to Mint Mobile, I lost SMS/MMS over WiFi. It seems that T-Mobile limits what MVNOs can do.
@mwgardiner said:
When I went to Mint Mobile, I lost SMS/MMS over WiFi. It seems that T-Mobile limits what MVNOs can do.
Perhaps, however, in my experience it’s phone dependent. Because; @cdiggs is considering the Pixel 6a and because I have a Pixel 6a, I specifically tested it and found both WiFi calling and SMS/MMS over WiFi to work with RW My Choice (T-Mobile network) and Tello (also T-Mobile network) SIMs.
I cannot speak to the experience of using a OnePlus 7 Pro with Mint Mobile but if T-Mobile were actively limiting SMS/MMS over WiFi for all its MVNOs, then neither the RW My Choice or Tello SIMs should have worked.
WiFi calling and SMS/MMS over WiFi also worked with RW 5.0 (AT&T network) and Mobi (Verizon network) SIMs.
It’s not enough of an issue for me to futz with it. The phone was the same OnePlus 7 Pro. It is entirely possible that I’ve gummed up the APN settings. It took several attempts for me to get MMS working at all. When I got it working on cellular, I stopped fiddling with it. I’m not perfect, and some days adequacy is more than I can manage.
I was hoping some cell MVNO would start working the Bandwidth the way RW did but didn’t find one in Bandwidth’s customer list. I did notice that RW was still in their list and that several non-cell phone services are using Bandwidth messaging.
