Sprint adds free Picture Mail to data plan

[dollface]

My husband's treo just got a Picture Mail message on his phone, from someone he didn't know. We have Text Messaging blocked on both of our lines, as we don't want the added expense and don't really text anyone. So I called Sprint thinking that somehow our text messaging had become unblocked, and the CSR said the at the end of June Sprint deleted a lot of their old data packages, and combined Picture Mail for free on all the data plans. I usually send photos by ChatterEmail, but I just tried sending a photo by Picture Mail and it's pretty darn easy; of course, you send it to a phone number instead of an email address.

[blueonblackstrat]

Dollface, I've always been under the impression that in order to send or recieve picture mail, you had to have the data plan. I did see that a lot of the plans offered, are more the all in one bundle now... talk text data... I had to change mine here last week, I'd been doing good with my usage, however, now that I'm calling a differant dispatcher at work, my usage has gone up a great deal... or perhaps it's the gal I met who uses Verizon... I think I'll blame work...lol

[dollface]

Dollface, I've always been under the impression that in order to send or recieve picture mail, you had to have the data plan. I did see that a lot of the plans offered, are more the all in one bundle now... talk text data... I had to change mine here last week, I'd been doing good with my usage, however, now that I'm calling a differant dispatcher at work, my usage has gone up a great deal... or perhaps it's the gal I met who uses Verizon... I think I'll blame work...lol

Well I wasn't saying that you didn't need a data plan before to use Picture Mail, it's just that I think they used to charge it as a text message. I have never had text messaging on our phones (an extra $5-10 a month) so never used Picture Mail. What I was saying is that they moved Picture Mail out of the SMS pricing category and made it free of charge with the data plans. So DH and I can both use Picture Mail to send photos (and you can even type in text and attach a voice file) for free, even though we have Text Messaging blocked on both of our phones. It even uses the same SMS program on our treos; and I found out that you can send photos to email addresses or phone numbers.

[blueonblackstrat]

I've only been a sprint customer for a year now, so it was always this way I think... of course don't quote me on that.

[blueonblackstrat]

Dare I ask... what was the picture of lol.

[dollface]

well, when I called Sprint about it over the weekend, she said they only made this change on June 20, 2008. The photo that I sent my DH?............... it was a photo of our cat!! :cool:

[Flitir]

I just wanted to chime in here and mention that if you have the persons e-mail address in their contact info you can send pictures via text to the e-mail address. I do this all the time because my wife complains that the pictures are too small to see well on her Centro.

[plunker]

Picture mail was an add on plan to the data. You need a data plan to be be able to use the extra plans like picture mail. Text messaging was included with my plan years ago but now they have that as an extra fee in most plans. Phone and text does not need a data plan but everything else I believe needs a data plan or will charge by the minute which is very expensive.