Smart Phone Wireless

A seasoned pc user I am new to smart phones and have been searching for an answer I feel certain many of you will know. My cell phone bill recently has been through the roof since our first grandchild arrived in December and the photos and videos abound and I discovered my wife's phone not on wireless here in the house which of course I just put on to wireless and we both have iPhones on ATT.

Exactly what does the wireless take over? Are the photos sent through the phone where my wireless is on picked up by wireless or should I ask they do these on email to remove all those charges. Recently ATT ended the "unlimited" features on new contracts and have maximums for data and text etc which we are crushing these last 2 months so I don't know if making sure both phones are on wireless will solve that or I need to insist on email for these....

Thanks for any help here in advance as its an area I am sorely out of touch in.

 

Yes Cindy but what about receiving photos, as that is what seems to be causing it and I would assume email would be on wireless if we were at home? What I don't know about is receiving photos as data whether or not that is charged to the phone or is accessed by router if we are at home. If we know that sending on the phone uses data plan then it would be logical that receit of same would be the same thing?

 

Great idea Tony and I am going to do that but I still would like to know if pictures would go across wireless as data and therefor not be a charge.

 

OK so if we shut of cellular data on the phone that means then they can only come in wirelessly and that would be free of charges if here at home? This is really getting confusing, if they come in attached to a text is that a phone call or is it data?

 

Yes you attach a photo to a message which is text...I tried shutting my wife's cellular data off in the house, and mine is off as well and then sent her a picture by text which should mean that it had to come in on wireless.
Now what I need to know is if leaving the cellular data off she can still text and receive away from home which would then mean the photo becomes part of the text bill then...man this really is confusing, no wonder why these guys make so much money!

 

Well I discovered in the midst of all this that when I reduced all the bills last year especially the cell bill I didn't notice when I cut the minutes in half as I had 1200 and went to 700 they cut the unlimited text from the bill. It seems that the iPhone is free on wireless as i- messages and so are the pictures which count as data but are also free on wireless but the big problem was my wife's phone slipped off wireless and I never noticed so that was a double "whammy".
Between the pictures and videos there were $70 worth of charges last month that should have been covered by $25 unlimited text plan missing.

Wireless covers data and the data plan I had at 4 Gb should have been sufficient if both phones were on wireless. i-messages to other iphones are free but the data would be wireless and if not on wirless part of the data charges.
Man it takes a separate degree to understand this stuff.

Pete I don't know how you make it with 500 meg data and 300 minutes unless its just you....

 

OK that makes sense...my wife lives on the phone which kills us.

 

lol I don't use any free call minutes, SMS messages and hardly use any of my 250mb of data, but then Ive become very good at finding free wireless connections. all apps are set to update only when connected to wifi, Messages and photos are done over facebook, but thats a subject on its ownto maintain privacy settings.

 

It seems like all my clients have "go" phones and pay less than $50 a month and have all kinds of services and I have a plan with my wife's teacher discounds and my best bill for both of us is $150 a month. One of these days I need to go learn how to do this right.

 

good job I didn't mention I pay £8 pcm for a sim only contract.

 

On an iPhone there is a setting to shutoff mobile data when connected to wi-fi. Once you set that all emails, sms, iMessages and everything else will use wireless and will not count against your data plan. If you have a service like mine, which is Sprint, then your phone calls will also use wireless so you won't be charged any minutes either.

 

Thanks Bob I need to check that out! I see it shut off cellular data but I don't see one that does it automatically when you are on wireless. Oh I should add I have a 4S maybe the 5 has more settings.