Does an IM count as a text message or not?

September 16, 2006 11:47 AM

T-mobile MDA & AIM/Yahoo! Messenger: what's the REAL story with paying per message?

I'm a current (and pretty satisfied) T-mobile customer-- I'm not interested in changing networks at all. But I do want to change my phone in for the T-mobile MDA, which I'll use for work and to hold office hours for an online course I'm teaching (office hours run via AIM). So far, no problem.

But when I've gone in and priced plans, I've added in the Total Internet package, which gives access to the GPRS data service as well as to the HotSpot WiFi service. The issue is this: I have asked three customer service people who work for T-mobile about how AIM/Y! instant messages are carried and billed, and I have been told two different things. One says that these services are covered through the Total Internet package and are unlimited, as they are Internet services. The other says that each AIM message sent and received counts as a text message ($0.20 apiece). The third has no clue.

So I need to hear the truth from someone who is receiving actual bills, someone using the MDA and the Total Internet Plan. What's the real story, since T-mobile itself doesn't seem to know?

posted by yellowcandy to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: I'm not sure about the particulars of the Total Internet Plan, but I can add that, at least as recently as a couple of years ago, T-mo did charge per instant message (even when one subscribed to the T-zones package, which was advertised as including AIM).

Each message, both incoming and outgoing, were assessed the fee, and, to make matters worse, so was each time the AIM application polled the server to check for messages.

I, of course, learned this the hard way, and when I tried to dispute the charges, found a similar lack of information from the T-mo customer service folks.

You might be better served by asking at theHoward Forums.
posted by hoboynow at 12:11 PM on September 16, 2006

Best answer: The IM client that comes with the MDA uses text messages to send/receive IMs, but there are other applications that will use the Total Internet connection.

I can't find a link to support it, I either read it in Howard Forums or the Wizard developer forums. (The MDA is a branded version of the HTC Wizard).
posted by revgeorge at 12:25 PM on September 16, 2006

Best answer: seconding revgeorge - in pretty much all the phones I've had, those IM programs use text messages for data. just get AIM for Windows CE or something like Agile Messenger (not that I've used either one). in a sense, they're both right; AIM can use either/or - if you're not using the built-in IM program, it's using the Internet and is going through that plan.
posted by mrg at 1:51 PM on September 16, 2006

preview good thing. since the MDA isn't anything but a regular pocket pc phone, you can just run whatever pocketpc IM software you can find, usually.
posted by mrg at 1:52 PM on September 16, 2006

An aside: aren't T-Mobile text messages 5 cents apiece, not 20 cents?
posted by limeonaire at 6:10 PM on September 16, 2006

T-Mobile txt messages are .10/each ... so 1 send and receive (2 x .10) = $ .20.
posted by eatcake at 10:03 PM on September 16, 2006

Second the HoFo plug. I recently read a thread giving info on which IM applications were charged as text and which just used data. IIRC, AIM uses text, and Agile Messenger uses only data.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:40 PM on September 16, 2006